• 3x World Champion and 4x Code S champion • 13-1 in offline BO7 series • 11x Liquipedia-premier tournament wins
Notable tournament finishes
2017 IEM Shanghai: 1st place
2017 GSL Super Tournament 2: 1st place
2017 WCS Global Finals: 1st place
2018 IEM World Championship: 1st place
2019 Code S Season 3: 1st place
2020 IEM Katowice: 1st place
2020 Code S Season 2: 1st place
2021 Code S Season 1: 1st place
2021 DHM Winter Season Finals: 2nd place
2021 GSL Super Tournament 3: 1st place
2021 TeamLiquid Starleague 8: 1st place
2022 Code S Season 1: 1st place
Rogue enters the list at #3, possessing one of the best tournament resumes in history AND the most vaunted reputation as a big-match player. His trophy cabinet of three world championships, four Code S titles, and eleven Liquipedia-premier tournament wins overall easily surpasses everyone below him on the list. This is made all the more impressive by his 13-1 record in offline BO7 series, which was earned against all-time greats such as herO, soO, Dark, Stats, Zest and Maru. While Rogue may have been notorious for slacking in lower-stakes matches, not even clutch kings like sOs or Serral can claim they were as good in the matches that mattered most.
The key to Rogue's success was his all-around strength as a player, letting him do anything and everything he needed to win. He was famously fond of using creative builds and cunning all-ins to catch his opponents off guard, but when the meta dictated it, he was just as good at using abusive macro builds to grind his way to sure victories. For Rogue, every unit in the Zerg arsenal was a potential weapon, and he wielded each one to perfection.
Career Overview: Fashionably Late
Rogue is by far the most successful member from the KeSPA invasion class of 2012, but he was also by far the latest bloomer in his cohort. He was certainly not one of the "elephants" SC2 fans feared, as he entered with a nearly blank Brood War resume with no Proleague games played. His early StarCraft II career was similarly nondescript, as he made just a single major tournament appearance in 2012-2013—a RO32 finish in the 2013 OnGameNet Starleague. Rogue's Proleague stats were also unimpressive, as he put up a mere 8-17 record for Jin Air during the 2012-13 season (playing under the ID "Savage" at the time).
In 2014, Rogue finally started to enjoy his first, small bits of success. He reached the RO32 of two Code S tournaments that year, and he even made the qualifier cut for two "weekenders" in the KeSPA Cup and IEM Katowice (though he lost in the first round of both). In Proleague, he improved to become a solid 3rd option behind Maru and sOs, recording a solid 17-13 record for Jin Air.
After his slow start, Rogue finally had his first breakout year in 2015. He made an enormous jump in individual leagues, reaching the RO8 in five out of six Code S and SSL tournaments held that year. He was vastly improved in Proleague as well, with his ace-worthy 26-14 record getting unfortunately overshadowed by sOs and Maru having even better seasons. All of this success culminated at the 2015 WCS Global Finals, where Rogue entered as the #15 seed and beat Maru and Hydra to achieve a career-best top 4 finish (losing 0-3 to eventual champion sOs in the semifinals).
Rogue looked to be one of the hottest rising players in the scene, but the release of Legacy of the Void in late 2015 waylaid his ascent. His individual league results cratered in 2016, as he only achieved RO32 and RO16 finishes in Code S while not qualifying for SSL at all (both SSL and GSL had only two seasons in 2016). While he did go 13-9 in Proleague, the only reason he had a positive win rate was his 7-0 record in ZvZ (nonetheless, Jin Air won their only championship in 2016).
Chances of a recovery looked grim to start 2017, as Rogue dropped out of Code S Season 1 in the RO32 while failing to even make it through the qualifiers for IEM Katowice, SSL, and Super Tournament #1. However, he abruptly picked up the pace midway through the year, returning to the RO8 of Code S in Season 2 (as for the reason for this turnaround, all Rogue gave was the boilerplate progamer answer of "I practiced hard" in interviews). Still, headed into July, Rogue still had to make up a lot of ground if he wanted to return to his previous high point from 2015: the WCS Global Finals.
Rogue already knew what was coming at IEM Shanghai.
Rogue's comeback tour made a critical stop in China in late July, as Rogue ran roughshod over the field at IEM Shanghai to win the first major championship of his career. It was a win that came out of left field—even though Rogue had been playing extremely well on the ladder, few had expected him to convert it so quickly into a trophy against a strong field of players. His impressive run with wins over top players such as Dark (3-0), ByuN (3-1), and herO (4-1) did much to lighten the shadow from his 18-month slump, suggesting that the rising star from 2015 may have finally returned—and even leveled up significantly. In that regard, Rogue's RO8 finish in Code S Season 3 was a glass half-full/empty result, leaving fans to keep wondering what his true ceiling might be.
In any case, two Code S RO8's and an IEM Shanghai win put Rogue in a do-or-die situation headed into GSL Super Tournament #2 in September. He was just on the cusp of having enough points to qualify for WCS Global Finals, but had to beat out both sOs and Classic for that final spot. In the end, Rogue made the most of the opportunity and reaffirmed that his career has reached an entirely new phase. With wins over Maru (3-0), Dear (3-1), INnoVation (3-2, with INnoVation coming fresh off a Code S title), and herO (4-3), Rogue won his second major trophy and locked in his spot at BlizzCon.
Rogue's runs at IEM and the Super Tournament instantly placed him among the favorites to win BlizzCon 2017, despite the fact that he entered as the last place seed from Korea (the TL.net Power Rank placed him at #2). The Rogue hype-train suffered a derailment scare just as it left the station, as Rogue lost his opening group stage match against Neeb (featuring their famous/notorious 50 minute game on Mech Depot). However, Rogue got back on track by defeating Nerchio in the losers' match, and then took revenge on Neeb in the decider match to reach the playoffs.
Having reached the quarterfinals, Rogue recorded his third straight offline BO5+ win over herO that year, before moving on to reverse-sweep TY to advance to the finals opposite of soO. Like Rogue, 2017 was also a bounceback year for soO after a quiet 2016—though soO had obviously reached a much higher level previously in his career. soO quickly gained the upper hand in the final, jumping ahead to a 2-1 lead. He very well could have gone ahead 3-1, but due to Catalina's starting-point asymmetry preventing a full wall-off, he was forced to surrender the tying point to Rogue's Zergling all-in in game four. From there, the series was all Rogue. soO tried his hand with his own all-in in game five, but Rogue defended with aplomb and took the 3-2 lead. Rogue then took game six in the exact opposite way, forcing a late-game scenario where soO was known to struggle. soO was forced into mass Corruptors to counter Rogue's Brood Lords, but his overcommital to anti-air units opened himf up to a mass tech-switch to Hydralisks and Infestors. Forcing soO down to just one mined-out base, Rogue forced the final GG of the series out of his hands. In the span of just six months, he had gone from intriguing-but-disappointing talent to world champion.
In hindsight, Rogue's run to the BlizzCon championship in 2017 was a preview of what would become a familiar pattern in the years to come. He disappointed sorely in the first half of the year, dropping out of events in the first round or not qualifying at all. But when it came down to brass tacks, when winning championships at "weekender" events was the only way he could qualify for BlizzCon, Rogue played better than anyone in the world. And, once he reached his final destination of BlizzCon, he only got even better while his illustrious opponents collapsed around him.
The cycle began anew in 2018, as Rogue followed up his brilliant performance at the WCS Global Finals by dropping out of Code S Season 1 in the opening round. For a brief moment, it made the events of the second half of 2017 feel like a bizarre dream. However, at IEM Katowice, Rogue reassured everyone that his ascent to the top of the SC2 scene was very, very real.
Rogue started off his RO24 group with a loss to Serral (who was just beginning his own ascent), but it would end up being his only match loss of the entire tournament. Advancing from his group in second place, Rogue tore through the initial rounds of the playoffs with a 3-0 win against sOs and 3-1 against TY. Maru provided a tougher challenge in the semis, but Rogue prevailed 3-2 to reach the finals. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the bracket, Classic 3-0’d Serral to set up Rogue’s third ZvP grand final. Having already defeated herO in back to back finals in 2017, Rogue proved his ZvP skills once more with a 4-0 pummeling of Classic. In the span of four months, Rogue had won world championships at both BlizzCon and IEM Katowice, joining sOs as the second player ever to simultaneously hold the two titles.
Consistency is for losers, trophies are for winners (but what about consistent winners).
Rogue went back into cruise control after that, settling for two more Code S RO8 finishes while flopping out of the opening round of both Super Tournaments and GSL vs the World. However, BlizzCon qualification would be no issue this time around, as the 2018 edition of the tournament awarded a direct seed to the IEM World Champion.
It was no surprise to see Rogue flip a switch once a huge payday was on the line, and he breezed through his opening group in first place at the 2018 WCS Global Finals. An in-form TY proved to be a difficult quarterfinal opponent (TY had just finished runner-up to Maru in Code S), but Rogue eked out a 3-2 victory to eliminate the Splyce Terran from a world championship tournament for the third time. Rogue's hibernation-domination cycle was coming close to completion, but in an ironic twist, he ran into a player who was repeating his own story from Blizzcon 2017. Serral, following his semifinal loss at IEM Katowice, had become a complete monster in the second half of 2018 and had rapidly ascended to BlizzCon title contender status. Heading into his match with Rogue, Serral had defeated INnoVation, Dark, Stats, sOs, and Zest in the previous six months, and Rogue soon joined his countrymen. Rogue surrendered a 1-3 loss to the Finnish Phenom, sending him on his way to a historic BlizzCon championship win.
After his RO4 run at BlizzCon, Rogue once again fell into a lull. He soft-announced his transition back into stand-by mode at November's HomeStory Cup 18, getting eliminated in the group stage with ShoWTimE, uThermal, Cure, and Harstem all finishing higher than him (a ridiculous result for an ostensible top-5 player). The first half of 2019 was full of similarly crummy results, including a RO32 finish Code S Season 2, RO16 finish in Super Tournament #1, and group stage elimination at IEM Katowice 2019. The only positive result for Rogue was Code S Season 1, where he notched his customary top eight finish.
Then, in a twist that was simultaneously out of nowhere and utterly predictable, Rogue caught fire in Season 3 of Code S. Finishing first in his RO32 and RO16 groups was no surprise, but Rogue turned an important corner by defeating Zest 3-1 in the RO8. Prior to Rogue's ascent in 2017, his numerous RO8 finishes in Code S were emblematic of his good-but-not-great status in SC2. However, his failure to get over the RO8 hump even after he had won twin world championships was simply confounding, with fans struggling to find an explanation. Whether it was nerves, the Code S format, or simply a lack of effort, Rogue cleanly washed off his Code S jinx with his win over Zest. From there, it was smooth sailing for Rogue who looked like the best version of himself again, as he toppled Dark (4-1) and Trap (4-0) to claim his first Code S Championship after twenty seasons in the tournament. (Amusingly enough, Rogue gave an interview not long after the finals where he admitted that Zerg was overpowered at the time.)
Having reached a key career milestone with his first Code S title, Rogue went into another down period—albeit shorter and less severe this time around. After exiting Super Tournament #2 in the first round (another ongoing trend), Rogue came up short at the 2019 WCS Global Finals as well. Zergs were expected to dominate the tournament, and indeed, Rogue was one of the five Swarm generals to make the quarterfinals. However, playing his best match-up of ZvP against Classic, he gave up one of the most stunning and dramatic upsets of the tournament, as Classic pulled out a legendary DT blink strategy to steal game five and the series.
The rebound from this brief slump came at IEM Katowice 2020, where Rogue would win his third world championship. Rogue began by seizing first place in a tough group that included Zest, Reynor, ShoWTimE, and defending champion soO, earning himself a direct seed into the quarterfinals. He made short work of Dark in the quarterfinals (3-0) before getting the better of his former Jin Air teammate Maru in a BO5 semifinal that went the difference.
A symbolically important Korea vs. The World clash between Serral and Rogue seemed to be on the cards, but Zest scratched it from the schedule by scoring a huge 3-2 upset against Serral in the semifinals with his 'new' Glaive-Adept style. Zest had been making waves in the tournament with his twist on the old build, having also used it to defeat Rogue and Reynor in the group stage. However, by the finals, Rogue had all the scouting information he needed to counter the opener, and he took a comfortable 4-1 win to win his second IEM Katowice title and join sOs as the only players to win three world championships (Serral would equal them in 2024).
With Rogue having tied a historic record, fans would have been wise to prepare for another trip on the Rogue roller-coaster. In comically predictable fashion, dropped out of both Code S Season 1 and the Super Tournament in the first round. However, Rogue bounced back quickly in Code S Season 2, recapturing some of his momentum from IEM Katowice to win a second Code S title. This run was laden with hiccups in the group stage, as Rogue stumbled through in second place in both the RO24 and RO16. However, he was completely untroubled in the playoffs, as he swept Dream and DongRaeGu in the first two rounds to set up a finals match against Stats in the finals. In a match that resembled his many prior ZvP finals, Rogue never gave Stats room to breathe and took a one-sided 4-1 victory.
With 3 world championships and 2 Code S titles in hand, Rogue had put himself firmly in the GOAT discussion. His case was enhanced by what was becoming a near-mythic statistical record: 7-0 in offline BO7 matches. In the most important matches, Rogue simply never lost. However, Rogue wasn't done building his resume just yet, as he would pick up two more Code S championships before he put down his keyboard and mouse for good.
No one embodied "he can't keep getting away with it" like Rogue.
The rest of 2020 was rather unremarkable for Rogue—he dropped out of Code S Season 3 in the RO16 and failed to attain notable results in the many online majors of the pandemic era. Likewise, the first and only online version of IEM Katowice held in 2021 was a disappointment by Rogue's standards, as he was held to a top eight finish after being thrashed by Maru in a quarterfinal sweep.
Thus, when he met Maru again in the finals of 2021 Code S Season 1 just two months later, it felt like it might finally be time for Rogue to actually lose in a finals and in an offline BO7 series. He had only narrowly defeated Zest 3-2 in the quarterfinals, and he had even struggled to keep the streak intact against heavy underdog Dream in the semifinals. Combined with his earlier defeat to Maru at IEM Katowice, the only thing keeping Rogue from being the clear underdog in the match was the belief that he would activate some kind of superpower to keep his undefeated streak going.
Against all expectations, the match was hardly a contest. Maru, playing for the hallowed G5L title, looked utterly unlike the player who had crushed Rogue a few months prior. In particular, he was completely vexed by Rogue's decision to play a Roach-Ravager style in the first three games, unable to find a way to get into a macro game without taking damage or just flat-out dying. Maru only took a single map against a failed Nydus all-in from Rogue in game four, after which Rogue closed things out with surprise Mutalisks in game five.
Having trained us to expect a subsequent slump, Rogue gave the StarCraft II community a swerve by actually using his third Code S title to spark his most consistent career stretch in terms of tournament results. While he fell back to the RO8 in 2021 Code S Season 2, he quickly recovered with a RO4 finish in Season 3 (although, his loss to Zest in the semis ended his offline BO7 streak). More noticeably, he started to rack up high finishes in various non-Code S "weekender" events, something he hadn't done since his initial rise in 2017. In the online sphere, he achieved top four and runner-up finishes in DreamHack Masters Summer and Winter, and won TeamLiquid Starleague 8 with victories over Serral in both the winners finals and grand finals of the double-elimination tournament. In offline tournaments, he finally played up to his reputation in the GSL Super Tournament, winning the 2021's Season 3 with a 4-3 victory against Maru in the finals.
Rogue's strong play continued at IEM Katowice 2022, where he made it all the way to the semifinals. Unfortunately for Rogue, Serral was out for revenge after TSL8, and took the rematch 3-0 before going on to win the championship.
Ultimately, Rogue's wave of momentum sparked by Code S championship number three crested with championship number four. 2022's Code S Season 1 was a tournament laden with upsets, featuring perennial group stage player Creator going on the run of his career to reach the finals. Dark and Rogue were the only two title favorites to actually survive until the playoffs, and once Rogue took care of Dark in the semis, it was almost certain that he'd end Creator's miracle run in the finals and lift the trophy once more.
While Creator put up a better fight than some expected, the finals ended up playing out as expected. Even the famously emotional Creator didn't seem terribly disappointed at losing 2-4 to one of the greatest players of all time. With his victory, Rogue tied Maru for the most Code S wins in history at four.
Rogue would have one shot to achieve the G5L ahead of Maru, but it was not to be as he dropped out of Code S Season 2 in the group stages. That would end up being the final Code S tournament of his career, as in August of 2022, he retired after twelve years of progaming (Maru would finally win the G5L the next season).
When Rogue transitioned to StarCraft II, he did so as a KeSPA trainee who had never played a Proleague match. From those humble origins, Rogue gradually rose to become one of the most successful players in StarCraft II history. With four Code S titles and three World Championships to his name, it would be irresponsible to not count him among the best ever to play StarCraft II. While he comes in at #3 on this particular list, it's not unreasonable for some fans to still consider him to be the true GOAT.
Lest this become a collection of awkward Rogue trophy lifts, enjoy this pic of SombreroZerg from HomeStory Cup.
The Tools: Everything AND the Kitchen Sink
Before Rogue became a Code S, IEM, or WCS World Champion, he was entertaining fans as one of the most creative and unpredictable players in Proleague. He found ways to win with Swarm Hosts when others considered the unit unplayable, used mass Baneling drops in PvZ, and was unusually fond of proxy-Hatcheries as a tool. I could keep going on with the examples—what's clear is that Rogue really enjoyed going off the beaten path.
When Nydus Worms, Swarm Hosts, and Proxy Hatches all became overpowered in future metas, you could hardly blame Rogue for abusing them. He had already been using them for years, and he was just the right man to maximize their capabilities.
As the years passed by, Rogue’s skillset became increasingly well-rounded. Rogue was arguably one of the best late game Zergs of all time by the time 2017 wrapped up, taking full advantage of all three Zerg spellcasters in complicated engagements. He eventually mastered the art of mid-game macro, using superior mechanics to overwhelm opponents with endless waves of units.
But even as Rogue added these new facets to his game, he lost none of the creativity from his past. Few players, if any, could so ably wield the full spectrum of Zerg strategy. Rogue was capable of anything, and could do anything capably, making him one of the most impossible opponents to plan against.
While it's a bit tricky to include Rogue's ability to 'flip the switch' as one of his strengths—because it comes with the weakness that the switch needed so much damn flipping—it was clearly an important element to Rogue's success. As we pointed out with sOs and Mvp, strong mentality and the 'know how to win' factor can be incredibly important in StarCraft II, and Rogue was the player who paired these intangibles with the highest level of baseline skill.
The Numbers: 3 World Championships and 4 Code S Titles, What More to Say?
Well, there is one statistical quirk about Rogue that must be pointed out, beyond the fact that he has one of the strongest tournament resumes of any player in history.
That is, of course, the mythical record in offline best-of-seven matches.
Career record in offline, best-of-seven matches Liquipedia-premier tier tournaments onlyᵃᵇ
a: Double-elimination best-of-seven finals where winners' bracket player had a map advantage were included. b: HomeStory Cup tournaments with a BO5 + BO3 finals format were included.
It's a bit complicated squaring this against Rogue's record in offline BO5's, which is a pedestrian 36-31 (again, Liquipedia-premier tournaments only). After all, many of those BO5's were also important matches, with most major tournaments outside of Code S holding their semifinals in a BO5 format.
However, it's not narrative-focused analysis to single out Rogue's offline BO7 results when you compare him to every other great player. Of the players on this GOAT list, he was clearly the most successful in such settings, with only INnoVation and Serral coming close to challenging him (and that with the benefit of having several fully region-locked WCS Circuit tournaments added to Serral's record).
Finals appearances in Korean Individual League (Code Sᵃ, OSL, SSLᵇ) finishes From the start of StarCraft II (July 2010) until present day (February 2024).
a: The 2010 Open Seasons and the 2011 Super Tournament were included due the number of players and amount of prize money. b: SSL 2017 was excluded due to its 10-player format c: INnoVation is 4-1 in finals when including SSL 2017 d: Dark is 3-3 in finals when including SSL 2017 c: Stats is 2-4 in finals when including SSL 2017
Despite not winning Code S until 2019, Rogue wasted no time in becoming the second most winningest player in Korean Individual Leagues. Where Maru and INnoVation won their first Premier Events as early as 2012 and 2013 respectively (it took Maru nine years to win his fourth Code S title and eight to win his fourth Korean Individual League), Rogue managed to win Code S four times across the final 11 seasons he played in before departing for the military. This, of course, is directly related to Rogue’s absurd win rate in Best of 7 series from 2017 until he retired in 2022. Once Rogue made it far enough to participate in a seven game series, he converted that chance into a victory on all but one occasion.
Timeline of World Championship Tournament finishesᵃ From 2013 until present day (February 2024).
a: Included tournaments: WCS Global Finals 2013-2019, IEM Katowice 2014-2024 (except 2016), WESG 2016-2018, Gamers8 2020 b: WESG tournaments are listed according to the year in which the grand finals was actually held. The year in the official title of the tournament is given in parentheses.
In terms of world championship caliber tournaments, sOs, Rogue, and Serral are tied on top of the mountain with three world championships a piece. Rogue came close to tying sOs's unbelievable mark of three world championships in 24 months, achieving his triple in a 26 month span. For comparison, that's about the same amount of time between championships one and two for Reynor and Serral.
Rogue's head-to-head record against notable players in offline matches During Rogue's "prime" (2017 to 2022)
Rogue’s career took a massive turn for the better in 2017 as he shed the mantle of quirky player who always loses in the Round of 8 in Code S to become the WCS Global Champion. During Rogue's prime, TY was the only top-tier player who could break even with Rogue in terms of statistics, but Rogue had a key advantage in winning all three of their meetings in world championship caliber tournaments.
While Serral holds a firm lead over Rogue in offline matches, it's worth at least a footnote that Rogue handed Serral some of the worst defeats of his prime by beating him in back-to-back winners' final and grand final series in the online TSL8 tournament.
Record of notable Zergs in offline ZvP matches vs Korean playersᵃ From January 2017 to February 2024
a: While the overall level of non-Korean players rose in the 2020's, only matches vs Korean players were chosen to simplify this state (and not have to pick and choose which non-Korean Protoss players to include)
Considering Rogue defeated a Protoss player in seven of his 11 wins in Premier Events, it is no surprise that he ranks among the best ever when it comes to ZvP. While one could argue that all modern Zergs benefited greatly in playing during various periods of Protoss weakness, not everyone achieved the win-rates that made ZvP seem hopelessly imbalanced. Rogue and Serral were the two key figures in making sure Zerg ruled 2018-2020 with an iron fist, snuffing out nearly all Protoss hope.
The Placement
Why Mvp got the nod over INnoVation for fourth place on this list largely came down to a single question—do the aggregate achievements from a long career outweigh short-term brilliance that defined an era? In the case of INnoVation, the answer was no. But when we ask the same question of Rogue, the balance comes out in the favor of extraordinary career accomplishments.
Rogue never dominated any era the way Mvp ruled over Wings of Liberty, but the fact is, no player ever did. However, from 2017-2022, Rogue won so many events that even the King of Wings would feel envious. In that time, Rogue won a combined seven Korean Individual Leagues (all Code S) and World Championship titles, which is a mark only surpassed by Maru. Rogue won the bulk of these trophies in a highly competitive period that saw players like Maru, Serral, TY, and Reynor enter their primes, while old-guard players like Zest, soO, INnoVation, Dark, Classic, and Stats proved they still had plenty of fight left in them. Only Rogue's final Code S title was won in a period where the Korean scene had entered noticeable contraction (in fact, one might even consider Rogue's retirement the demarcation line).
Of course, Rogue’s penchant for dropping out of events early (or failing to qualify altogether) is a slight knock against him. Rogue’s three first round exits in Code S from 2017-2022 equals the number of times Maru, Dark and Trap collectively dropped out of the Round of 32 in that time (once each). However, most of the KeSPA-era players on this list went through one or more slump periods, and when you compare overall tournament placements throughout their careers, Rogue doesn't appear any more inconsistent than other mercurial greats such as Zest and INnoVation.
While Rogue doesn't win the honor of being the Greatest of All Time in my eyes, he's certainly the greatest of something. The greatest champion? The greatest big-match player? The greatest son-of-a-b**** you never want to face in an important game? Whatever you call it, Rogue had a special quality that separates him from everyone else on this list.
The Games
Rogue vs herO: 2015 Proleague - Playoffs, Game 7 (September 29, 2015)
In what I deem to be Rogue's most memorable game from Heart of the Swarm, he faced off against herO in a final, super ace-match to whether CJ Entus or Jin Air Green Wings would move on to the Proleague grand finals.
herO went with his typical blink stalker/sentry aggression that served him so well in 2015, but Rogue had something much more unorthodox prepared: mass Baneling drops. The CJ Entus ace was caught completely off guard by these tactics, and Rogue stepped over broken Stalker pieces to send Jin Air to the finals.
Rogue vs Stats: 2017 Code S Season 3 - Round of 8, Game 4 (August 30, 2017)
After a failed proxy-Hatchery all-in in the prior game of the series ("is this the worst strategy I've ever seen?" quipped Tasteless), Rogue stuck to his aggressive ways with another all-in in game four.
Rogue started with a fast Nydus just outside of Stats' natural, beginning his assault with Roaches and Ravagers. However, with Stats parrying the initial assault and starting to mass Oracles, Rogue doubled-down on his containment and started a slow Spore Crawler push into the Protoss natural. A Hydralisk Den and even Lurkers followed after, showing Rogue's commitment to this bizarre two-base slowpush. Penned in with a frail unit composition, Stats' only option was to commit to a hopeless breakout attempt before GG'ing out.
Rogue vs Trap: 2019 Code S Season 3 - Finals, Game 3 (September 28, 2019)
Single-handedly forcing a balance change is something few players can claim to have achieved, and I imagine Rogue wears that badge proudly. Alright, maybe Rogue wasn't solely responsible for getting Infested Terrans removed entirely from StarCraft II, but you get the feeling that this was the game that broke the camel's back.
Playing against Trap in the Code S Season 3 finals, Rogue successfully forced a late-game scenario where Zerg was heavily favored. With numerous options at his disposal in terms of finishing Trap off, Rogue went in the direction that would make Protoss feel maximum hopelessness: mass Nydus-Infested Terran harass. Hiding behind a forest of Spore Crawlers at home, Rogue refused to fight Trap's army while spewing Infested Terrans all over his bases. Trap was stuck defending as Rogue’s nonstop harassment continued to chip away at his infrastructure for basically no cost at all. When Trap forced a desperation engagement with his main army, countered yet again with mass Infested Terrans, showing us that time is truly a flat circle.
Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
"While Rogue doesn't win the honor of being the Greatest of All Time in my eyes, he's certainly the greatest of something. The greatest champion? The greatest big-match player? The greatest son-of-a-b**** you never want to face in an important game? Whatever you call it, Rogue had a special quality that separates him from everyone else on this list."
This is such a critical, fantastic piece of writing. For me, personally, Rogue isn't quite #1 because his play lacked the sheer grandeur and macro brilliance of Maru and Serral, but he's the greatest big-game player, maybe the greatest winner ever in SC2.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
Also Rogue has some inconsistency issue, which is hilariously epitomized by getting knocked out by Scarlett twice in the first group stage of GSL in 2018 and 2020 in almost the exact same fashion. Whereas you're never worried about Serral not making the playoffs (he's only not made top 8 minimum three times out of 61 Premier tournaments since 2018).
On February 27 2024 10:56 Nasigil wrote: Again, I'd like to see more games to help readers to really appreciate and understand what's unique and special about these GOAT players!
We could always link them in the comments. How about the famous Rogue vs Maru GSL final?
It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
Also Rogue has some inconsistency issue, which is hilariously epitomized by getting knocked out by Scarlett twice in the first group stage of GSL in 2018 and 2020 in almost the exact same fashion. Whereas you're never worried about Serral not making the playoffs (he's only not made top 8 minimum three times out of 61 Premier tournaments since 2018).
Easy to avoid having that kind of consistency issue when you don't play in Code S tournaments.
You really cannot ding Rogue for that Scarlett series understanding that it was a Bo3 ZvZ series where Scarlett had weeks to prepare just for that match. From what we've seen of Serral's ZvZ through his career, we know he's not immune to dropping series to lesser players, and that's in a weekend tournament setting much less when someone is given the chance to prepare weeks ahead of time just to snipe you.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
Also Rogue has some inconsistency issue, which is hilariously epitomized by getting knocked out by Scarlett twice in the first group stage of GSL in 2018 and 2020 in almost the exact same fashion. Whereas you're never worried about Serral not making the playoffs (he's only not made top 8 minimum three times out of 61 Premier tournaments since 2018).
Easy to avoid having that kind of consistency issue when you don't play in Code S tournaments.
You really cannot ding Rogue for that Scarlett series understanding that it was a ZvZ series where Scarlett had weeks to prepare just for that match.
Agreed, I think it's not particularly helpful to make comparisons across tournaments each player didn't/couldn't compete in when you have plenty of shared-ground tournaments to go through (and it's mostly pro serral )
Although, at the end of the day, the "Serral didn't play in Code S" issue is unavoidable, and squaring that is always gonna be thorny.
On February 27 2024 12:09 JJH777 wrote: It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
The classic coping excuses ping, schedule, jet lag
Koreans are just not as good as you think they are. Then again, Maru already admits that Serral makes him look like a bronze player
Back to topic, I would have rogue higher than Maru, rogue accomplish were far more impressive than Maru. Maru only has his “weak GSLs victories”, literally had to wait for his KR peers to get older or leave for military
User was warned for this post
Also didn’t know Dark struggled that much in BO7 series
On February 27 2024 12:09 JJH777 wrote: It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
The classic coping excuses ping, schedule, jet lag
Koreans are just not as good as you think they are. Then again, Maru already admits that Serral makes him look like a bronze player
Back to topic, I would have rogue higher than Maru, rogue accomplish were far more impressive than Maru. Maru only has his “weak GSLs victories”, literally had to wait for his KR peers to get older or leave for military
User was warned for this post
Also didn’t know Dark struggled that much in BO7 series
Maru and Rogue are the same in that regard lol. Rogue is even worse though. Both popped off after korean teams (apart from theirs) died.
I never know in which order I should rank Rogue and Maru. If you only really consider GSL and World Championships (with Katowice included), Rogues resumee is definetly better, even by a landslide tbh. But then again, being the GOAT is not only about results, but also about a certain aura a player carries. And while Rogue definetly had an aura of his own, it never was that of a player who has to win the tournament or it is a bust. But that is the kind of sphere that Serral and Maru are in. In the later stages of his career, it was never surprising when Rogue won, but that isn't the kind of thing I personally associate with the term "GOAT", atleast not when I compare it to GOATs in other (E)Sports.
So even though I rank World Championships higher than GSL, Rogue is the singular case in which I would choose someone without any WCs over him and agree with his placement at #3
On February 27 2024 12:09 JJH777 wrote: It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
The classic coping excuses ping, schedule, jet lag
Koreans are just not as good as you think they are. Then again, Maru already admits that Serral makes him look like a bronze player
Back to topic, I would have rogue higher than Maru, rogue accomplish were far more impressive than Maru. Maru only has his “weak GSLs victories”, literally had to wait for his KR peers to get older or leave for military
User was warned for this post
Also didn’t know Dark struggled that much in BO7 series
Maru and Rogue are the same in that regard lol. Rogue is even worse though. Both popped off after korean teams (apart from theirs) died.
World championships trumps everything. Hardest event to win along with the hardest competition
On February 27 2024 11:00 Glorfindelio wrote: "While Rogue doesn't win the honor of being the Greatest of All Time in my eyes, he's certainly the greatest of something. The greatest champion? The greatest big-match player? The greatest son-of-a-b**** you never want to face in an important game? Whatever you call it, Rogue had a special quality that separates him from everyone else on this list."
This is such a critical, fantastic piece of writing. For me, personally, Rogue isn't quite #1 because his play lacked the sheer grandeur and macro brilliance of Maru and Serral, but he's the greatest big-game player, maybe the greatest winner ever in SC2.
I really think in both Rogue and Dark's case, their success was almost all in LotV, an era which feels definitively less prestigious than previous eras. Rogue was relevant a bit earlier, but not by much. Rogue probably barely edges out Dark in accomplishments, and is placed #3! Dark is stuck all the way down in #11-20, like some sort of AMATEUR.
But in retrospect, I honestly think global finals and WCG's and older IEMs (WCS dissolution) were just not that meaningful, even with the bigger prize pools. I look at a random GSL or SSL, then look at WCS finals in 2017, and there's a pretty substantial difference in competitive level, even though the prize pools are pretty comparable. I'm one of those HotS-biased people!!
At this point the Miz's blog explaining #11-20 placements might end up being just as expected as the final 2 articles finally sorting out what is more important (to Miz): overall dominance or Korean starleagues.
My other interest is boxing, and I'm always baffled by how many people from that community appeal to authority when it comes to debating pound-for-pound (P4P) lists. Too many default to "X official list has Y boxer as #1," or "most official lists have..." I mean, I do think it's interesting what conclusions publishers come to, and how they rationalize their decisions, but what I've never understood is the extent to which fans appeal to these publications for their own opinions. "Lemmings..." is all I can say.
Have your list. It's fine. It's interesting, even! However, let's not get too invested/rattled by any single person's opinions. It's good enough if you have your own standards/criteria, and your own list. Don't worry about others.
Dark is definitely on mine, and I consider him above Rogue. He's won far too much money, and has gone deep into too many big tournaments to exclude him, and most of all performs far too consistently strongly. I would slap myself if I were remiss to include him. I still don't quite understand Mizenhauer's justification for leaving him out.
I have Innovation, and even TY, way above MVP, and have debated whether to take MVP off my list entirely. I'm sorry, but I feel very icky about having any WoL-only era player on my list. For three reasons: primarily, they bailed out on the game too soon; if you have no love for the game, I have little love for you. Secondly, WoL itself was too simple, and undeveloped a game. Finally, the players' average skill level in the earliest years was so far beneath even HotS's level, I really can't respect it much.
Reynor is also there. I don't understand how someone can win two championships, one against Maru no less, multiple grand finals against Serral, and multiple 2nd-4th finishes in the biggest tournaments, and still not qualify. Insane. In two championships that he didn't win, he placed 2nd, which net him more money than 8 non-WC premiere wins combined would. Reynor's career earnings is also up there, close to Dark.
On February 27 2024 12:09 JJH777 wrote: It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
The classic coping excuses ping, schedule, jet lag
Koreans are just not as good as you think they are. Then again, Maru already admits that Serral makes him look like a bronze player
Back to topic, I would have rogue higher than Maru, rogue accomplish were far more impressive than Maru. Maru only has his “weak GSLs victories”, literally had to wait for his KR peers to get older or leave for military
User was warned for this post
Also didn’t know Dark struggled that much in BO7 series
Maru and Rogue are the same in that regard lol. Rogue is even worse though. Both popped off after korean teams (apart from theirs) died.
Popped off as in went on multiple world champion winning sprees sure, but both were very successful before then too.
On February 27 2024 12:09 JJH777 wrote: It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
The classic coping excuses ping, schedule, jet lag
Koreans are just not as good as you think they are. Then again, Maru already admits that Serral makes him look like a bronze player
Back to topic, I would have rogue higher than Maru, rogue accomplish were far more impressive than Maru. Maru only has his “weak GSLs victories”, literally had to wait for his KR peers to get older or leave for military
User was warned for this post
Also didn’t know Dark struggled that much in BO7 series
Maru and Rogue are the same in that regard lol. Rogue is even worse though. Both popped off after korean teams (apart from theirs) died.
Popped off as in went on multiple world champion winning sprees sure, but both were very successful before then too.
Maru, sure. Rogue was nothing special til 2017. Just good for some wacky games now and then. A bunch of ro8s and above average proleague results ain't much to write home about imo.
Woohoo! I've been waiting for this one for a while. Probably the least controversial placement in the whole list. In terms of "playing on another level and looking absolutely unbeatable," Rogue was one of the few that ever reached those heights, especially when it came down to grand finals appearances
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
Edit: I guess you were specifically responding to the "...where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral?" clause. I know it's speculative, but I have little doubt that if Clem were stewed in Kr's environment, he would've more quickly learned their play, and adjusted to them. Considering how young he is, and his only real practice against Koreans was through actual tournaments, I think he's shown he has the talent to improve at a much more rapid pace against Koreans if he were competing regularly over there.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
I said his only competition that could hope to make a deep run in Code S. Since that's the kind of quality of opponents that matters in GOAT lists. Nobody's opinion is going to be swayed because he beat Elazer, Showtime, and Heromarine because it's well understood that everyone else who belongs on this list would also beat them 9 times out of 10.
I think Serral does belong in the top spot, but it's not because he won a bunch of EU region locked trophies that only had 1 or 2 Code-S trophy level opponents. It's because of the tournaments he won that had lots of opponents of that quality.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
I said his only competition that could hope to make a deep run in Code S. Since that's the kind of quality of opponents that matters in GOAT lists. Nobody's opinion is going to be swayed because he beat Elazer, Showtime, and Heromarine because it's well understood that everyone else who belongs on this list would also beat them 9 times out of 10.
I think Serral does belong in the top spot, but it's not because he won a bunch of EU region locked trophies that only had 1 or 2 Code-S trophy level opponents. It's because of the tournaments he won that had lots of opponents of that quality.
I'm sorry, but here we go again with the bias... 9/10 is an incredible exaggeration. If you put Maru against Heromarine (and we know Maru's TvT is insane), he would NOT likely win 9/10 matches, let alone games. A 900% winrate over anyone would net you over 1000 Elo pts over them. Not even Maru's TvT is that much stronger than Heromarine's. You only have to look over Maru's match history to see that Maru has nowhere near 9:1 maps winrate against Heromarine, and had lost 1 out of 7 matches. Rogue's winrate vs Showtime is virtually even. Same vs Neeb. He lost every match to Elazer, except for one tie. Do you need more examples?
If Scarlet, Jinro, and Special could make deep runs into GSL, there's a larger number of players who could as well. IN fact, Neeb did make it deep once, or twice, and Neeb was one of the players Serral had to defeat in his region-locked tournament wins.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
I said his only competition that could hope to make a deep run in Code S. Since that's the kind of quality of opponents that matters in GOAT lists. Nobody's opinion is going to be swayed because he beat Elazer, Showtime, and Heromarine because it's well understood that everyone else who belongs on this list would also beat them 9 times out of 10.
I think Serral does belong in the top spot, but it's not because he won a bunch of EU region locked trophies that only had 1 or 2 Code-S trophy level opponents. It's because of the tournaments he won that had lots of opponents of that quality.
Weren't showtime, elazer, heromarine quite competitive the last several years though? Like i remember them besting top KRs in WCS global finals, Elazer getting like a top 4 at one or something didn't he? And heromarine just got out of his group 5-0 at Katowice including vs Solar and Gumiho, and has had insane runs before too. And the other EU players like Spirit can still compete and win vs T2-T3 GSL players like Creator, Bunny, Classic, etc.
If I'm thinking about GSL, recent years it feels it's just been mainly Maru, Rogue, Dark, Cure, and Creator/Ragnarok got brief spikes, and Solar more recently. hero, Gumiho, Byun do good sometimes. It's a little more depth than EU scene but we've seen that foreign scene has been pretty comparative in skill to KR. KR has a little more players at the A tier, but EU having more S tier players (Serral, and Reynor/Clem on a good day, vs just Maru Dark and Cure on a good day) and usually coming out on top (Serral, Reynor, Clem).
I have to agree with Perceivere that TL users definitely feel KR biased, including the weighting of Starleagues in GOAT lists. It feels like many people in the SC2 scene don't have this bias, but they tend to not post here as much because whenever they say Serral is better than Maru or whatever, it feels a bit controversial on TL when it should be pretty reasonable to say so.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
Same, Rogue has the best resume, Serral is better though
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
I said his only competition that could hope to make a deep run in Code S. Since that's the kind of quality of opponents that matters in GOAT lists. Nobody's opinion is going to be swayed because he beat Elazer, Showtime, and Heromarine because it's well understood that everyone else who belongs on this list would also beat them 9 times out of 10.
I think Serral does belong in the top spot, but it's not because he won a bunch of EU region locked trophies that only had 1 or 2 Code-S trophy level opponents. It's because of the tournaments he won that had lots of opponents of that quality.
Weren't showtime, elazer, heromarine quite competitive the last several years though? Like i remember them besting top KRs in WCS global finals, Elazer getting like a top 4 at one or something didn't he? And heromarine just got out of his group 5-0 at Katowice including vs Solar and Gumiho, and has had insane runs before too. And the other EU players like Spirit can still compete and win vs T2-T3 GSL players like Creator, Bunny, Classic, etc.
If I'm thinking about GSL, recent years it feels it's just been mainly Maru, Rogue, Dark, Cure, and Creator/Ragnarok got brief spikes, and Solar more recently. hero, Gumiho, Byun do good sometimes. It's a little more depth than EU scene but we've seen that foreign scene has been pretty comparative in skill to KR. KR has a little more players at the A tier, but EU having more S tier players (Serral, and Reynor/Clem on a good day, vs just Maru Dark and Cure on a good day) and usually coming out on top (Serral, Reynor, Clem).
I have to agree with Perceivere that TL users definitely feel KR biased, including the weighting of Starleagues in GOAT lists. It feels like many people in the SC2 scene don't have this bias, but they tend to not post here as much because whenever they say Serral is better than Maru or whatever, it feels a bit controversial on TL when it should be pretty reasonable to say so.
OK so, to structure an unbias look at these players... how we should weigth the tournaments? Can you give a list of torunament types and weigths? Where with your put the starleagues? Give me heromarine, elazer and spirit historical numbers and compare the head2head vs Classic Bunny Creator.
Lastly, please keep in mind this is not a 2024 road to Gamer8 power ranking (tl.net also does those), this is a historical view of the long decade of the game.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
Same, Rogue has the best resume, Serral is better though
Serral's resume is far better, even if you only count high placements and 1st placements. If you count the amount of bad runs (low placements), the gap widens much further in Serral's favor. Counting only wins and not severe fails is silly, but even by that silly metric, Serral is still far ahead.
Serral didn't have to "slack off" or "hide builds/strategies" (to nearly the same degree as Rogue) to prepare for big tournaments to win those big tournaments. He puts almost all of his cards on the table for all to see, all year-round, and then still runs over everybody. That's not something Rogue could remotely pull off; or if he could, he certainly didn't show it.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
I said his only competition that could hope to make a deep run in Code S. Since that's the kind of quality of opponents that matters in GOAT lists. Nobody's opinion is going to be swayed because he beat Elazer, Showtime, and Heromarine because it's well understood that everyone else who belongs on this list would also beat them 9 times out of 10.
I think Serral does belong in the top spot, but it's not because he won a bunch of EU region locked trophies that only had 1 or 2 Code-S trophy level opponents. It's because of the tournaments he won that had lots of opponents of that quality.
I'm sorry, but here we go again with the bias... 9/10 is an incredible exaggeration. If you put Maru against Heromarine (and we know Maru's TvT is insane), he would NOT likely win 9/10 matches, let alone games. A 900% winrate over anyone would net you over 1000 Elo pts over them. Not even Maru's TvT is that much stronger than Heromarine's. You only have to look over Maru's match history to see that Maru has nowhere near 9:1 maps winrate against Heromarine, and had lost 1 out of 7 matches. Rogue's winrate vs Showtime is virtually even. Same vs Neeb. He lost every match to Elazer, except for one tie. Do you need more examples?
If Scarlet, Jinro, and Special could make deep runs into GSL, there's a larger number of players who could as well. IN fact, Neeb did make it deep once, or twice, and Neeb was one of the players Serral had to defeat in his region-locked tournament wins.
Lol, sorry but saying Maru would beat HM 9 times out of ten when the actual statistic is 6 times out of 7 is not an incredible exaggeration. "Every match but one tie vs Elazer" is also hilariously cherry picking when they've only played a statistically insignificant 7 maps total against each other and in such high stakes tournaments such as the Kung Fu weekly cup #2. The fact that this is the example you chose screams of grasping for straws.
In 2018 and 2019 when Serral was racking up his region locked WCS wins, he was not competing against the following still active Koreans: Maru, Classic, Stats, Zest, TY, Rogue, Dark, sOs, Gumiho, Trap, Solar, soO, Dear, INnoVaTion, ByuN, etc etc. Those are all players who would be absolutely favored to knock out almost any EU player of that era. If you're saying Serral's WCS wins were highly significant in that time period when you look at all the opponents he didn't have to face to get them, then I don't really know what to say.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
Same, Rogue has the best resume, Serral is better though
Serral's resume is far better, even if you only count high placements and 1st placements. If you count the amount of bad runs (low placements), the gap widens much further in Serral's favor. Counting only wins and not severe fails is silly, but even by that silly metric, Serral is still far ahead.
Serral didn't have to "slack off" or "hide builds/strategies" (to nearly the same degree as Rogue) to prepare for big tournaments to win those big tournaments. He puts almost all of his cards on the table for all to see, all year-round, and then still runs over everybody. That's not something Rogue could remotely pull off; or if he could, he certainly didn't show it.
How is his resume better? He won the same amount of World Championships, but Rogue also won GSL, and some other tournaments, while Serral won a few EU tournaments / Homestory cups that don't matter much as far as resume go (otherwise TaeJa would be a GOAT candidate)
I mean, I was already telling tl.net that Serral was the best zerg in the world back in 2018 and people thought I was trolling, but his resume is far from being as good as Rogue
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
I said his only competition that could hope to make a deep run in Code S. Since that's the kind of quality of opponents that matters in GOAT lists. Nobody's opinion is going to be swayed because he beat Elazer, Showtime, and Heromarine because it's well understood that everyone else who belongs on this list would also beat them 9 times out of 10.
I think Serral does belong in the top spot, but it's not because he won a bunch of EU region locked trophies that only had 1 or 2 Code-S trophy level opponents. It's because of the tournaments he won that had lots of opponents of that quality.
I'm sorry, but here we go again with the bias... 9/10 is an incredible exaggeration. If you put Maru against Heromarine (and we know Maru's TvT is insane), he would NOT likely win 9/10 matches, let alone games. A 900% winrate over anyone would net you over 1000 Elo pts over them. Not even Maru's TvT is that much stronger than Heromarine's. You only have to look over Maru's match history to see that Maru has nowhere near 9:1 maps winrate against Heromarine, and had lost 1 out of 7 matches. Rogue's winrate vs Showtime is virtually even. Same vs Neeb. He lost every match to Elazer, except for one tie. Do you need more examples?
If Scarlet, Jinro, and Special could make deep runs into GSL, there's a larger number of players who could as well. IN fact, Neeb did make it deep once, or twice, and Neeb was one of the players Serral had to defeat in his region-locked tournament wins.
Lol, sorry but saying Maru would beat HM 9 times out of ten when the actual statistic is 6 times out of 7 is not an incredible exaggeration. "Every match but one tie vs Elazer" is also hilariously cherry picking when they've only played a statistically insignificant 7 maps total against each other and in such high stakes tournaments such as the Kung Fu weekly cup #2. The fact that this is the example you chose screams of grasping for straws.
In 2018 and 2019 when Serral was racking up his region locked WCS wins, he was not competing against the following still active Koreans: Maru, Classic, Stats, Zest, TY, Rogue, Dark, sOs, Gumiho, Trap, Solar, soO, Dear, INnoVaTion, ByuN, etc etc. Those are all players who would be absolutely favored to knock out almost any EU player of that era. If you're saying Serral's WCS wins were highly significant in that time period when you look at all the opponents he didn't have to face to get them, then I don't really know what to say.
I chose Heromarine because the winrate between him and Maru should be the widest example. Meaning, there are many other matchups that would far exceed your 1/10 winrate claimed. Funny that you chose to single out Elazer's example as "cherry picking" when I also provided other examples. Clem has also given Rogue several losses. The fact is, you can't just speculate willy nilly that in a higher stake tournaments, Rogue would have 9/10 chances against players that have crushed him in low-stakes tournaments. It's wishful thinking at best.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
Same, Rogue has the best resume, Serral is better though
Serral's resume is far better, even if you only count high placements and 1st placements. If you count the amount of bad runs (low placements), the gap widens much further in Serral's favor. Counting only wins and not severe fails is silly, but even by that silly metric, Serral is still far ahead.
Serral didn't have to "slack off" or "hide builds/strategies" (to nearly the same degree as Rogue) to prepare for big tournaments to win those big tournaments. He puts almost all of his cards on the table for all to see, all year-round, and then still runs over everybody. That's not something Rogue could remotely pull off; or if he could, he certainly didn't show it.
How is his resume better? He won the same amount of World Championships, but Rogue also won GSL, and some other tournaments, while Serral won a few EU tournaments / Homestory cups that don't matter much as far as resume go (otherwise TaeJa would be a GOAT candidate)
I mean, I was already telling tl.net that Serral was the best zerg in the world back in 2018 and people thought I was trolling, but his resume is far from being as good as Rogue
This is an example of what I've been talking about. You say "some other tournaments" but refuse to enumerate them, while Serral's myriad region-locked wins and long string of HSCs are just "a few." And then purposefully leaving out all the other global premiere wins and high standings I listed in my reply to Wax:
"Serral: Same big threes (WCs) as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral???"
No one said Taeja would be a GOAT candidate based on three HSC wins. lol It is all the accolades combined. You are purposefully ignoring a shit ton of achievements because you arbitrarily throw them in the "insignificant" bin, but the fact is not only are they each not as insignificant as you think, but also the sheer volume of them together is far more than you're willing to accept, because it doesn't fit your narrative.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
I said his only competition that could hope to make a deep run in Code S. Since that's the kind of quality of opponents that matters in GOAT lists. Nobody's opinion is going to be swayed because he beat Elazer, Showtime, and Heromarine because it's well understood that everyone else who belongs on this list would also beat them 9 times out of 10.
I think Serral does belong in the top spot, but it's not because he won a bunch of EU region locked trophies that only had 1 or 2 Code-S trophy level opponents. It's because of the tournaments he won that had lots of opponents of that quality.
I'm sorry, but here we go again with the bias... 9/10 is an incredible exaggeration. If you put Maru against Heromarine (and we know Maru's TvT is insane), he would NOT likely win 9/10 matches, let alone games. A 900% winrate over anyone would net you over 1000 Elo pts over them. Not even Maru's TvT is that much stronger than Heromarine's. You only have to look over Maru's match history to see that Maru has nowhere near 9:1 maps winrate against Heromarine, and had lost 1 out of 7 matches. Rogue's winrate vs Showtime is virtually even. Same vs Neeb. He lost every match to Elazer, except for one tie. Do you need more examples?
If Scarlet, Jinro, and Special could make deep runs into GSL, there's a larger number of players who could as well. IN fact, Neeb did make it deep once, or twice, and Neeb was one of the players Serral had to defeat in his region-locked tournament wins.
Lol, sorry but saying Maru would beat HM 9 times out of ten when the actual statistic is 6 times out of 7 is not an incredible exaggeration. "Every match but one tie vs Elazer" is also hilariously cherry picking when they've only played a statistically insignificant 7 maps total against each other and in such high stakes tournaments such as the Kung Fu weekly cup #2. The fact that this is the example you chose screams of grasping for straws.
In 2018 and 2019 when Serral was racking up his region locked WCS wins, he was not competing against the following still active Koreans: Maru, Classic, Stats, Zest, TY, Rogue, Dark, sOs, Gumiho, Trap, Solar, soO, Dear, INnoVaTion, ByuN, etc etc. Those are all players who would be absolutely favored to knock out almost any EU player of that era. If you're saying Serral's WCS wins were highly significant in that time period when you look at all the opponents he didn't have to face to get them, then I don't really know what to say.
I chose Heromarine because the winrate between him and Maru should be the widest example. Meaning, there are many other matchups that would far exceed your 1/10 winrate claimed. Funny that you chose to single out Elazer's example as "cherry picking" when I also provided other examples. Clem has also given Rogue several losses. The fact is, you can't just speculate willy nilly that in a higher stake tournaments, Rogue would have 9/10 chances against players that have crushed him in low-stakes tournaments. It's wishful thinking at best.
Let's pretend that when I said "9 times out of 10", I wasn't speaking in a literal sense but was instead using it as a literary device to mean "heavily favored" since you're so hyperfocused on that one phrase.
With that out of the way, take a look again at all the players I listed above that were active when Serral was winning WCS tournaments that he never had to face, and compare them against his EU opponents in their 2018 and 2019 forms. Then tell me with a straight face that those WCS tournaments belong in a GOAT discussion and are worth mentioning when we're comparing Rogue's and Serral's resumes.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
Edit: I guess you were specifically responding to the "...where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral?" clause. I know it's speculative, but I have little doubt that if Clem were stewed in Kr's environment, he would've more quickly learned their play, and adjusted to them. Considering how young he is, and his only real practice against Koreans was through actual tournaments, I think he's shown he has the talent to improve at a much more rapid pace against Koreans if he were competing regularly over there.
Or maybe Clem would not even have existed in a Kr environment, that's why we had region lock in the first place. With "ifs" you can rewrite all history if you want. But there's no need for that, we have datas, and for the past 4 years for the vast majority of global premier only had 2 or 3 EU players in the top 8 and often at least 5 koreans. One of the EU being almost always Serral, then Reynor and more recently as stated here: Clem. There's no denial that the EU scene has gone stronger and stronger, but there's no denial that Serral only true competition in region locked were these 2. That's why there is a Korean "bias", same bias that makes you highlight foreigners achievements in general, it's a reality. Even though we all agree it's shifting.
On February 27 2024 12:09 JJH777 wrote: It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
The classic coping excuses ping, schedule, jet lag
Koreans are just not as good as you think they are. Then again, Maru already admits that Serral makes him look like a bronze player
Back to topic, I would have rogue higher than Maru, rogue accomplish were far more impressive than Maru. Maru only has his “weak GSLs victories”, literally had to wait for his KR peers to get older or leave for military
User was warned for this post
Also didn’t know Dark struggled that much in BO7 series
Maru and Rogue are the same in that regard lol. Rogue is even worse though. Both popped off after korean teams (apart from theirs) died.
Same as Serral. If results post 2016 are worth so much less then Inno should be the Goat
On February 27 2024 17:41 dbRic1203 wrote: Prediction: Dark gets #2 and Maru / Serral share first place I Don t see a World where Dark is ranked lower than Mvp
Yeah, that's the only thing that would make sense.
On February 27 2024 12:09 JJH777 wrote: It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
The classic coping excuses ping, schedule, jet lag
Koreans are just not as good as you think they are. Then again, Maru already admits that Serral makes him look like a bronze player
Back to topic, I would have rogue higher than Maru, rogue accomplish were far more impressive than Maru. Maru only has his “weak GSLs victories”, literally had to wait for his KR peers to get older or leave for military
User was warned for this post
Also didn’t know Dark struggled that much in BO7 series
Maru and Rogue are the same in that regard lol. Rogue is even worse though. Both popped off after korean teams (apart from theirs) died.
Same as Serral. If results post 2016 are worth so much less then Inno should be the Goat
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
Same, Rogue has the best resume, Serral is better though
Serral's resume is far better, even if you only count high placements and 1st placements. If you count the amount of bad runs (low placements), the gap widens much further in Serral's favor. Counting only wins and not severe fails is silly, but even by that silly metric, Serral is still far ahead.
Serral didn't have to "slack off" or "hide builds/strategies" (to nearly the same degree as Rogue) to prepare for big tournaments to win those big tournaments. He puts almost all of his cards on the table for all to see, all year-round, and then still runs over everybody. That's not something Rogue could remotely pull off; or if he could, he certainly didn't show it.
How is his resume better? He won the same amount of World Championships, but Rogue also won GSL, and some other tournaments, while Serral won a few EU tournaments / Homestory cups that don't matter much as far as resume go (otherwise TaeJa would be a GOAT candidate)
I mean, I was already telling tl.net that Serral was the best zerg in the world back in 2018 and people thought I was trolling, but his resume is far from being as good as Rogue
Comparing Serral's and Rogue's resume like this is very misleading
"He won the same amount of World Championships, but Rogue also won GSL, and some other tournaments"
For premiers tournaments, "some other tournaments" means you're talking about 2 GSL ST, one TSL (online) and IEM Shangai
while Serral won a few EU tournaments / Homestory cups that don't matter much as far as resume go
Casually forgetting 2 GSL vs the World, 1 ESL Master, 1 TSL (this one was offline). As well as 6 premier online international tournament wins (iirc 4 during the COVID era and 2 recent ones) Also, previous HSC aren't cups that 'don't matter as much", HSC 20, 19 and 18 had an average of 10 koreans players including one with Rogue. The post covid ones are definitely not on the same level tho.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Serral's only competition in EU in the last like 3 years that could reasonably have gotten far in Code S is Reynor. Clem has only recently gotten to that level, and nobody else in EU has ever been good enough to even dream of contending for a Code S trophy.
"Gotten far" is a ridiculous standard. Pro-Kr-biased fans weight GSL heavily because they attach a certain "aura" to Korean players. A good number of these Kr players hardly ever get far into the GSLs. Call them high-Code A, or low Code-S, or whatever. They make up a large chunk of "Code S" players post-2016.
"Serral's competition" is an even more ridiculous standard. How many players can you really name that is his competition (unless you include head-to-head competition, in which case there's several zergs)?
I strongly disagree regarding Clem. It's not only recently that he's gotten so strong. He defeated Reynor in 2020 to snatch the EU regional win. The fact is, Clem for whatever reason took a very long time to understand the Koreans and adjust to them, and to develop his TvT. Reynor also, but to a much lesser degree. But that's not really relevant; the point is, Clem's T v Reynor/Serral was incredibly strong since 2020. He knew them like the back of his hand. Clem WAS his FIERCE competition since then.
I said his only competition that could hope to make a deep run in Code S. Since that's the kind of quality of opponents that matters in GOAT lists. Nobody's opinion is going to be swayed because he beat Elazer, Showtime, and Heromarine because it's well understood that everyone else who belongs on this list would also beat them 9 times out of 10.
I think Serral does belong in the top spot, but it's not because he won a bunch of EU region locked trophies that only had 1 or 2 Code-S trophy level opponents. It's because of the tournaments he won that had lots of opponents of that quality.
I'm sorry, but here we go again with the bias... 9/10 is an incredible exaggeration. If you put Maru against Heromarine (and we know Maru's TvT is insane), he would NOT likely win 9/10 matches, let alone games. A 900% winrate over anyone would net you over 1000 Elo pts over them. Not even Maru's TvT is that much stronger than Heromarine's. You only have to look over Maru's match history to see that Maru has nowhere near 9:1 maps winrate against Heromarine, and had lost 1 out of 7 matches. Rogue's winrate vs Showtime is virtually even. Same vs Neeb. He lost every match to Elazer, except for one tie. Do you need more examples?
If Scarlet, Jinro, and Special could make deep runs into GSL, there's a larger number of players who could as well. IN fact, Neeb did make it deep once, or twice, and Neeb was one of the players Serral had to defeat in his region-locked tournament wins.
Lol, sorry but saying Maru would beat HM 9 times out of ten when the actual statistic is 6 times out of 7 is not an incredible exaggeration. "Every match but one tie vs Elazer" is also hilariously cherry picking when they've only played a statistically insignificant 7 maps total against each other and in such high stakes tournaments such as the Kung Fu weekly cup #2. The fact that this is the example you chose screams of grasping for straws.
In 2018 and 2019 when Serral was racking up his region locked WCS wins, he was not competing against the following still active Koreans: Maru, Classic, Stats, Zest, TY, Rogue, Dark, sOs, Gumiho, Trap, Solar, soO, Dear, INnoVaTion, ByuN, etc etc. Those are all players who would be absolutely favored to knock out almost any EU player of that era. If you're saying Serral's WCS wins were highly significant in that time period when you look at all the opponents he didn't have to face to get them, then I don't really know what to say.
I chose Heromarine because the winrate between him and Maru should be the widest example. Meaning, there are many other matchups that would far exceed your 1/10 winrate claimed. Funny that you chose to single out Elazer's example as "cherry picking" when I also provided other examples. Clem has also given Rogue several losses. The fact is, you can't just speculate willy nilly that in a higher stake tournaments, Rogue would have 9/10 chances against players that have crushed him in low-stakes tournaments. It's wishful thinking at best.
Let's pretend that when I said "9 times out of 10", I wasn't speaking in a literal sense but was instead using it as a literary device to mean "heavily favored" since you're so hyperfocused on that one phrase.
With that out of the way, take a look again at all the players I listed above that were active when Serral was winning WCS tournaments that he never had to face, and compare them against his EU opponents in their 2018 and 2019 forms. Then tell me with a straight face that those WCS tournaments belong in a GOAT discussion and are worth mentioning when we're comparing Rogue's and Serral's resumes.
You are still not quite getting my point. I never said any of his region-locked wins were the same caliber of a GSL win. Those WCS wins altogether were significant, still, but indeed not terribly so. I agree.
The Dreamhack EU's were a different ballgame. Those were after Reynor and Clem had leveled up hard. Here's something to consider: these tournaments were all single elim tournaments, except for a couple DH EU. Meaning: Sure, your GSL stars were all present in the playoffs of Code S, and sure, there's a lot of them, and the vast majority of them are at least as strong as Heromarine/Showtime/Elazer. However, any one of them would only have to go through 3 (edit: roughly 3—the recent GSL formatting has been different) of those players in the playoffs. More likely than not, the players they had to go through in the groupstages were players of similar caliber to Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, but often even much weaker than those three. Serral, in his playoffs went through players who ranged anywhere between Elazer and Clem, where Clem and Reynor are proven to be harder opponents for Serral than any of the Koreans, save for Dark. As such, while the opposition Serral went through in each of his region-locked premiere win was not as hard as, say, Rogue going through TY, Classic, and then Dark in his playoffs, if you add up the combined strength of Showtime, Heromarine, and Clem, it's not far weaker than the combined strength of TY, Classic, and Dark. And it were three of these DH EU's he'd won. Now, when you include all the other shit he's won as well...
(Addendum) Note, also, in two of those DH EU's, Serral went through four strong players, including Clem twice in each tournament. I mean, anybody without looking at the results would've told Serral must've had a hell of a time, but in actually he completely crushed Clem, one of his toughest opponents.
I disagree that Rogue would've been "overwhelming favored" against Neeb, or Elazer in a big tournament. Somewhat favored against neeb, and maybe 50/50 against Elazer. Dark, being zerg, would not necessarily have an easy time against Elazer, too. Rogue had a tendency to "power up" when it matters most, but this aspect has been exaggerated as well.
Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
On February 27 2024 17:41 dbRic1203 wrote: Prediction: Dark gets #2 and Maru / Serral share first place I Don t see a World where Dark is ranked lower than Mvp
I'm a big Dark fan, and I cannot even in the most fanboy of headspace ever put him above Rogue in the GOAT conversation. I couldn't put him over Inno or Zest either but I could at least come up with some reasons why he might be considered for it.
If Dark was going to be on this list it should have been instead of TY or Rain.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
It's because he admitted of mostly only practicing seriously when zerg is OP while the other zergs didn't; but he was still the best zerg in the world at several points Rogue is probably #1 GOAT but "merely" top 5 "BOAT", which is still good
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
It's because he admitted of mostly only practicing seriously when zerg is OP while the other zergs didn't; but he was still the best zerg in the world at several points Rogue is probably #1 GOAT but "merely" top 5 "BOAT", which is still good
Wow! I actually never thought of it before, but now that you mentioned it...
Two of Rogue's biggest trophies were snatched during the period where everyone with 20/20 hindsight agrees zerg was OP, right? Serral's latest big win was after (let's count) 11 nerfs directed at zerg, and banelings and infestor ate nerf hammers to the face? His prior WC win was also only two years ago. Dang, that does not bode well for the "Rogue best resume" narrative, at all...
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
Same, Rogue has the best resume, Serral is better though
Serral's resume is far better, even if you only count high placements and 1st placements. If you count the amount of bad runs (low placements), the gap widens much further in Serral's favor. Counting only wins and not severe fails is silly, but even by that silly metric, Serral is still far ahead.
Serral didn't have to "slack off" or "hide builds/strategies" (to nearly the same degree as Rogue) to prepare for big tournaments to win those big tournaments. He puts almost all of his cards on the table for all to see, all year-round, and then still runs over everybody. That's not something Rogue could remotely pull off; or if he could, he certainly didn't show it.
How is his resume better? He won the same amount of World Championships, but Rogue also won GSL, and some other tournaments, while Serral won a few EU tournaments / Homestory cups that don't matter much as far as resume go (otherwise TaeJa would be a GOAT candidate)
I mean, I was already telling tl.net that Serral was the best zerg in the world back in 2018 and people thought I was trolling, but his resume is far from being as good as Rogue
This is an example of what I've been talking about. You say "some other tournaments" but refuse to enumerate them, while Serral's myriad region-locked wins and long string of HSCs are just "a few." And then purposefully leaving out all the other global premiere wins and high standings I listed in my reply to Wax:
"Serral: Same big threes (WCs) as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral???"
No one said Taeja would be a GOAT candidate based on three HSC wins. lol It is all the accolades combined. You are purposefully ignoring a shit ton of achievements because you arbitrarily throw them in the "insignificant" bin, but the fact is not only are they each not as insignificant as you think, but also the sheer volume of them together is far more than you're willing to accept, because it doesn't fit your narrative.
Have to hard agree with Perceivere here.
I used to say that Serral didn't have many achievements, other than some WCS global finals and GSL vs the Worlds. Which are great ofc, but GSL vs the World is below a Code S, and to me he hadn't surpassed Rogue or Maru's, cus I didn't weigh his WCS EU season wins much at all.
However... in the last few years Serral has racked up an insane amount of T1 and T2 tournament wins, and more WC or WC-tier wins (including the Katowice just now). It really isn't just "a few" EU wins and HSCs, saying so is really a criminal understatement even worse to me than people saying that Taeja winning all those weekenders didn't mean much. Considering that absolutely the top KRs were competing in those tournaments that Serral won, whereas you could argue that Taeja didn't have to beat many top Code S players in his.
Winning a ESL Master / ESL Season final vs T1 players like Trap and other Code S KRs competing, with a GSL size prize pool, isn't nothing. ESL season finals are supposed to be a step above GSL - not in difficulty perhaps, but definitely in terms of "mattering", and lead into the ESL Global Finals. Whereas GSL is just a regional. A very difficult regional yes, but a regional as of recent years. This is exactly the kind of KR bias I'm talking about that TL leans towards compared to other SC2 communities, understandably ofc. Other SC2 communities are pretty unanimous about recognizing Serral as the GOAT and don't hold this nostalgic weight for Starleagues/GSL.
Maru and Rogue would not have been able to pull off what Serral has since 2018. Serral is in a tier of his own, he is an anomaly that likely no other SC player BW or SC2 will replicate other than Flash, and it's not likely we will ever see a player of that calibre again unless maybe SC3 becomes a thing.
There is simply no real evidence that Maru and Rogue would have been able to, due to their losses, relative inconsistency, much much lower winrate vs other top players, and their H2H vs Serral himself. Serral however, has all the evidence going for him that if he did compete in KR, he would have most likely performed better than Maru and Rogue, assuming that he was able to move and adjust to life in KR.
Serral racking 3 WC tier events (including the recent Katowice) and ESL Masters events (which are the season finales and supposed to be a step above GSL and should be counted at the least in the same tier as GSL), which puts him comparative to Maru and Rogue already, and then you throw in all these other HSC tournaments, Master's Coliseum, GSL vs the World, etc. that he won that only pad his resume up even more... that's what makes him the GOAT. He's in a different "class" as people might say.
It isn't anything close to Taeja's situation, where he lacked WC wins, and T1 or Starleague wins. Serral has every thing else, PLUS all those T1/T2 weekender wins. Taeja's achievements alone already put him still in a top 15-20. Now add the WCs/GSL tier events that Maru and Rogue won, Flash's level of dominance/winrate, and you have Serral.
Just for comparison - MVP got #4 on this list, and many people here seem to agree with that. Yet he had much worse losses and inconsistency than Serral. You didn't see MVP get Top 2-4 at every tournament for several years. Heck, he only played for 3 and only had 1 truly dominant year. He even had some sus losses or games vs foreigners. You would see him even get knocked out of Code S for a time and didn't look so hot in Code A.
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
Not even when he won GSL ST, IEM Shanghai and Blizzcon back-to-back-to-back?
Great article! He may be #3 on the list, but #1 player in my filthy cheesey Zerg heart. Rogue had a combination of clutch, genius prep and straight-up clean skill that could make even the best look silly.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
Wut. Sure he lacked consistency, but on his A-game he made top players look bad. He didn't happen to win, he embarrassed some of the best talents to ever touch this game.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
It's because he admitted of mostly only practicing seriously when zerg is OP while the other zergs didn't; but he was still the best zerg in the world at several points Rogue is probably #1 GOAT but "merely" top 5 "BOAT", which is still good
Wow! I actually never thought of it before, but now that you mentioned it...
Two of Rogue's biggest trophies were snatched during the period where everyone with 20/20 hindsight agrees zerg was OP, right? Serral's latest big win was after (let's count) 11 nerfs directed at zerg, and banelings and infestor ate nerf hammers to the face? His prior WC win was also only two years ago. Dang, that does not bode well for the "Rogue best resume" narrative, at all...
Alternatively you could also say Serral won a tournament after 4 big Ghost nerf and numerous nerfs to Protoss
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Bro you can't be in good faith be saying this can you? That was literally a couple of the long list of achievements that were mentioned, from small achievements to huge achievements. How is mentioning more achievements hurting Serral? Are you really trying to imply that? When Maru and Rogue haven't racked up those kinds of wins?
Even if a HSC is below a GSL and WC obviously, it's still an achievement. It takes time, energy, and it exposes yourself to potential bad losses. If Maru and Rogue want to focus on KR tournies and GSL/WC then that's fine. But Serral is here focusing on his region, WC, AND also winning all these other events. How does that weaken the argument?
And you totally ignored the players that he won HSCs over: Reynor, Ty, Innovation, etc. These players that many would consider Top 5-15 GOATs. Sure it doesn't matter as much as a GSL. But what's their excuse for not winning? Why does Serral choose to win? Why DOES he win? He just cared and the others didn't, is that what you're implying? And if you think the others were trying at least somewhat, then why does it hurt to list more wins?
I don't know what your general stance is or what your personal list of GOATs is. But reading stuff like this is really mind boggling.
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Bro you can't be in good faith be saying this can you? That was literally a couple of the long list of achievements that were mentioned, from small achievements to huge achievements. How is mentioning more achievements hurting Serral? Are you really trying to imply that? When Maru and Rogue haven't racked up those kinds of wins?
Even if a HSC is below a GSL and WC obviously, it's still an achievement. It takes time, energy, and it exposes yourself to potential bad losses. If Maru and Rogue want to focus on KR tournies and GSL/WC then that's fine. But Serral is here focusing on his region, WC, AND also winning all these other events. How does that weaken the argument?
I mean, c'mon, how are you invoking bad faith when you tried to shove in a huge variety of different events into the same bucket, and afterward argued "BTW they were actually ALL kinda important."
You gotta try harder and not just use random debate words man.
And this is coming from someone that thinks that the AGGREGATE of Serral's non-Tier1 career is meaningful; we just gotta express it in a more good faith manner
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Bro you can't be in good faith be saying this can you? That was literally a couple of the long list of achievements that were mentioned, from small achievements to huge achievements. How is mentioning more achievements hurting Serral? Are you really trying to imply that? When Maru and Rogue haven't racked up those kinds of wins?
Even if a HSC is below a GSL and WC obviously, it's still an achievement. It takes time, energy, and it exposes yourself to potential bad losses. If Maru and Rogue want to focus on KR tournies and GSL/WC then that's fine. But Serral is here focusing on his region, WC, AND also winning all these other events. How does that weaken the argument?
I mean, c'mon, how are you invoking bad faith when you tried to shove in a huge variety of different events into the same bucket, and afterward argued "BTW they were actually ALL kinda important."
You gotta try harder and not just use random debate words man
I didn't mean to shove things into the same bucket, if it comes off that way somewhere (and I'm not sure where but I'll edit it if i know where cus I though i made it clear i see some as smaller and some as bigger achievements). My point is just that pointing to one of the less impressive achievements and saying "you can't think they should be GOAT cus of that right?" is dumb and in bad faith, when Perceivere was listing a lot of other achievements that were more important. How much these achievements weigh is another discussion ofc, but Serral participating in all these other smaller or weekender tournaments that Rogue/Maru don't should be considered.
Meanwhile, definitely no one is arguing that MKP should be GOAT solely for all'killing a finland team and KR team.
I personally think Serral is the GOAT and his achievements outweigh Rogue and Maru's, but it wasn't my main point. Just that people throw away his smaller wins while buffing them up or trying to count every little one for other players like MVP.
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Wow...I don't even know what to say to you...other than that you're completely missing the point.
No one is saying that it's any one tourney that matters. Are you lost? If you think single-handedly taking a nation to win against everyone, including S Korea, and winning 7 or 8 HSCs, out of 10, were an easy feat, you are most definitely lost. Do you not understand the concept of statistical outliers? Yeah, even players like marinelord, Scarlett, and Oliveira can have a really good day. Are you going to try and put down those championship tournaments those other two won as well because they were statistical outliers? By the way, around that time, marinelord was no slouch, either.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
It's because he admitted of mostly only practicing seriously when zerg is OP while the other zergs didn't; but he was still the best zerg in the world at several points Rogue is probably #1 GOAT but "merely" top 5 "BOAT", which is still good
Wow! I actually never thought of it before, but now that you mentioned it...
Two of Rogue's biggest trophies were snatched during the period where everyone with 20/20 hindsight agrees zerg was OP, right? Serral's latest big win was after (let's count) 11 nerfs directed at zerg, and banelings and infestor ate nerf hammers to the face? His prior WC win was also only two years ago. Dang, that does not bode well for the "Rogue best resume" narrative, at all...
Alternatively you could also say Serral won a tournament after 4 big Ghost nerf and numerous nerfs to Protoss
I don't know how anyone could look at that patch and say it was an overall ghost nerf, though. All of the stuff that was needed to deal with ghosts was nerfed. I'm also pretty sure that patch did not benefit zerg over protoss, either. Please remind me, what exactly was nerfed from protoss that really would outweigh the combined nerfs of baneling and infestor range? The nova? The disruptor supply? Disruptor was somewhat used in ZvP but nowhere to the same degree as it was in TvP, no? Maybe I'm wrong on that one. Mothership got a nice buff. Broodlord was slightly nerfed.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
It's because he admitted of mostly only practicing seriously when zerg is OP while the other zergs didn't; but he was still the best zerg in the world at several points Rogue is probably #1 GOAT but "merely" top 5 "BOAT", which is still good
Wow! I actually never thought of it before, but now that you mentioned it...
Two of Rogue's biggest trophies were snatched during the period where everyone with 20/20 hindsight agrees zerg was OP, right? Serral's latest big win was after (let's count) 11 nerfs directed at zerg, and banelings and infestor ate nerf hammers to the face? His prior WC win was also only two years ago. Dang, that does not bode well for the "Rogue best resume" narrative, at all...
Alternatively you could also say Serral won a tournament after 4 big Ghost nerf and numerous nerfs to Protoss
I don't know how anyone could look at that patch and say it was an overall ghost nerf, though. All of the stuff that was needed to deal with ghosts was nerfed. I'm also pretty sure that patch did not benefit zerg over protoss, either. Please remind me, what exactly was nerfed from protoss that really would outweigh the combined nerfs of baneling and infestor range? The nova? The disruptor supply? Disruptor was somewhat used in ZvP but nowhere to the same degree as it was in TvP, no? Maybe I'm wrong on that one. Mothership got a nice buff. Broodlord was slightly nerfed.
Given that you counted 11 Zerg nerfs I assumed you included the patch before the previous one which had things like the battery nerf
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Wow...I don't even know what to say to you...other than that you're completely missing the point.
No one is saying that it's any one tourney that matters. Are you lost? If you think single-handedly taking a nation to win against everyone, including S Korea, and winning 7 or 8 HSCs, out of 10, were an easy feat, you are most definitely lost. Do you not understand the concept of statistical outliers? Yeah, even players like marinelord, Scarlett, and Oliveira can have a really good day. Are you going to try and put down those championship tournaments those other two won as well because they were statistical outliers? By the way, around that time, marinelord was no slouch, either.
OK, I get your point. Statistics matters, even though some of the results are less important than the others. A championship is a championship, after all. So small tournaments like Nation Wars and Homestory Cups are important, too.
Then, I'm pretty sure, the absolute GOAT must be... Dark! Look at this long list of tournaments that he won!
World Team League 2022 Winter World Team League 2022 Summer DH SC2 Masters 2022 Valencia World Team League 2021 Winter 2021 Global StarCraft II League Season 2 TeamLiquid StarLeague 6 Gold Series Team Championship 2020 Spring 2019 WCS Global Finals 2019 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2 2019 GSL vs. The World: Teams Competition 2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S 2017 GSL vs. The World: Teams Competition 2016 WCS Korea Season 2 Cross Finals Archon Show Match 2016 WCS Korea Season 2 Cross Finals 2016 StarCraft II StarLeague Season 1: Main Event OSC Championship Season 11 WardiTV 2023 WardiTV Spring Championship 2023 World Team League 2022 Winter AfreecaTV Champions Cup Gladiators' Cup NeXT 2020 Spring Cursory Cup WardiTV Winter Championship 2023: NA Server Qualifier #1 LiuLi Cup #7 HU x StarCraft II Global Virtual Tournament KSL Summer Slam Afreeca World 104 Afreeca World 99 OlimoLeague Invitational #8 Theatre of Dreams 1 QCL: Power Overwhelming Pro Teamleague 2018 ONPOONG StarCraft 2 MASTERS Season 3 BTSL S2: Korea OlimoLeague Monthly Finals: October 2020 ESL Open Cup #215 Korea Korean Starcraft League #40 ESL Open Cup #207 Americas Kung Fu Cup 2023 Winter Weekly #11 ESL Open Cup #205 Korea Korean Starcraft League #38 ESL Open Cup #203 Americas ESL Open Cup #202 Korea ESL Open Cup #199 Korea Kung Fu Cup 2023 Winter Weekly #2 ESL Open Cup #194 Korea Korean Starcraft League #27 ESL Open Cup #192 Americas ESL Open Cup #191 Korea ESL Open Cup #190 Korea ESL Open Cup #189 Americas ESL Open Cup #189 Korea Korean Starcraft League #23 Korean Starcraft League #21 Korean Starcraft League #20 Korean Starcraft League #19 ESL Open Cup #182 Korea Korean Starcraft League #17 Kung Fu Cup 2023 Weekly #8 ESL Open Cup #178 Korea Korean Starcraft League #11 ESL Open Cup #172 Korea ESL Open Cup #171 Americas ESL Open Cup #171 Korea ESL Open Cup #170 Korea ESL Open Cup #169 Korea ESL Open Cup #168 Korea ESL Open Cup #167 Korea ESL Open Cup #166 Korea ESL Open Cup #161 Korea ESL Open Cup #160 Korea ESL Open Cup #159 Americas Goodgame Cup #30 ESL Open Cup #155 Korea ESL Open Cup #154 Korea ESL Open Cup #151 Korea ESL Open Cup #150 Korea ESL Open Cup #148 Korea ESL Open Cup #145 Americas ESL Open Cup #124 Korea ESL Open Cup #100 Korea ESL Open Cup #99 Korea ESL Open Cup #98 Americas ESL Open Cup #98 Korea ESL Open Cup #73 Korea ESL Open Cup #72 Korea ESL Open Cup #68 Korea OlimoLeague Week #224 ESL Open Cup #61 Korea ESL Open Cup #41 Korea Kung Fu Cup 2020 Weekly #25 OlimoLeague Week #206 ESL Open Cup #40 Korea ESL Open Cup #28 Korea Kung Fu Cup 2020 Weekly #18 Anonymous #8 Kung Fu Cup Weekly #10 Anonymous #2 Anonymous #1 Kung Fu Cup Weekly #7 Ballistix Brawl: Season 3 Week #4 Ballistix Brawl Week #2 Korean Starcraft League #44 Korean Starcraft League #43 Brawler's Club #38 AfreecaTV Pro Series #29 AfreecaTV Pro Series #24 INu's Battles #6 AfreecaTV Pro Series #10 AfreecaTV Pro Series #4 ITaX Super Series #91 ITaX Ultimate Battles #13 WTL 2021 Summer: DPG vs KaiZi Show Match Onpoong Ultimate Battle #17 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #16 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #15 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #14 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #13 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #9 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #8 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #7 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #6 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #5 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #4 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #3 Polygon Invitational #10 OlimoLeague Invitational #16 WardiTV Weekly S1 Finals Qualifier #1
He won against Serral 4:0 in the final of TeamLiquid StarLeague 6, earning $6000, while Serrals winning against Clem in Homestory Cup only earned him $3500. Over all, Dark has 128 championships, while Serral only has 106! Poor Rogue only has 70, I absolutely agree that he has no chance to be the GOAT. What a Patchzerg, indeed! He was not even trying! I think I just unveiled the last two GOATs, second place: Serral and 1st place: Dark! Thank you for enlightening me, it all makes sense now.
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Wow...I don't even know what to say to you...other than that you're completely missing the point.
No one is saying that it's any one tourney that matters. Are you lost? If you think single-handedly taking a nation to win against everyone, including S Korea, and winning 7 or 8 HSCs, out of 10, were an easy feat, you are most definitely lost. Do you not understand the concept of statistical outliers? Yeah, even players like marinelord, Scarlett, and Oliveira can have a really good day. Are you going to try and put down those championship tournaments those other two won as well because they were statistical outliers? By the way, around that time, marinelord was no slouch, either.
LOL maybe it was a troll account after all?
C'mon man, u gotta at least try to meet your opponents halfway on the forums—this ain't a StarCraft II match.
Say something like "Multi-kills in lower-stakes team tournaments aren't necessarily prestigious on their own, but they can reflect the ability of a player at a certain point in time. Just as INnoVation reminded us of his prowess by carrying AX-Acer to a GSTL championship, Serral did the same for Finland six years later in Nation Wars."
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Wow...I don't even know what to say to you...other than that you're completely missing the point.
No one is saying that it's any one tourney that matters. Are you lost? If you think single-handedly taking a nation to win against everyone, including S Korea, and winning 7 or 8 HSCs, out of 10, were an easy feat, you are most definitely lost. Do you not understand the concept of statistical outliers? Yeah, even players like marinelord, Scarlett, and Oliveira can have a really good day. Are you going to try and put down those championship tournaments those other two won as well because they were statistical outliers? By the way, around that time, marinelord was no slouch, either.
OK, I get your point. Statistics matters, even though some of the results are less important than the others. A championship is a championship, after all. So small tournaments like Nation Wars and Homestory Cups are important, too.
Then, I'm pretty sure, the absolute GOAT must be... Dark! Look at this long list of tournaments that he won!
World Team League 2022 Winter World Team League 2022 Summer DH SC2 Masters 2022 Valencia World Team League 2021 Winter 2021 Global StarCraft II League Season 2 TeamLiquid StarLeague 6 Gold Series Team Championship 2020 Spring 2019 WCS Global Finals 2019 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2 2019 GSL vs. The World: Teams Competition 2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S 2017 GSL vs. The World: Teams Competition 2016 WCS Korea Season 2 Cross Finals Archon Show Match 2016 WCS Korea Season 2 Cross Finals 2016 StarCraft II StarLeague Season 1: Main Event OSC Championship Season 11 WardiTV 2023 WardiTV Spring Championship 2023 World Team League 2022 Winter AfreecaTV Champions Cup Gladiators' Cup NeXT 2020 Spring Cursory Cup WardiTV Winter Championship 2023: NA Server Qualifier #1 LiuLi Cup #7 HU x StarCraft II Global Virtual Tournament KSL Summer Slam Afreeca World 104 Afreeca World 99 OlimoLeague Invitational #8 Theatre of Dreams 1 QCL: Power Overwhelming Pro Teamleague 2018 ONPOONG StarCraft 2 MASTERS Season 3 BTSL S2: Korea OlimoLeague Monthly Finals: October 2020 ESL Open Cup #215 Korea Korean Starcraft League #40 ESL Open Cup #207 Americas Kung Fu Cup 2023 Winter Weekly #11 ESL Open Cup #205 Korea Korean Starcraft League #38 ESL Open Cup #203 Americas ESL Open Cup #202 Korea ESL Open Cup #199 Korea Kung Fu Cup 2023 Winter Weekly #2 ESL Open Cup #194 Korea Korean Starcraft League #27 ESL Open Cup #192 Americas ESL Open Cup #191 Korea ESL Open Cup #190 Korea ESL Open Cup #189 Americas ESL Open Cup #189 Korea Korean Starcraft League #23 Korean Starcraft League #21 Korean Starcraft League #20 Korean Starcraft League #19 ESL Open Cup #182 Korea Korean Starcraft League #17 Kung Fu Cup 2023 Weekly #8 ESL Open Cup #178 Korea Korean Starcraft League #11 ESL Open Cup #172 Korea ESL Open Cup #171 Americas ESL Open Cup #171 Korea ESL Open Cup #170 Korea ESL Open Cup #169 Korea ESL Open Cup #168 Korea ESL Open Cup #167 Korea ESL Open Cup #166 Korea ESL Open Cup #161 Korea ESL Open Cup #160 Korea ESL Open Cup #159 Americas Goodgame Cup #30 ESL Open Cup #155 Korea ESL Open Cup #154 Korea ESL Open Cup #151 Korea ESL Open Cup #150 Korea ESL Open Cup #148 Korea ESL Open Cup #145 Americas ESL Open Cup #124 Korea ESL Open Cup #100 Korea ESL Open Cup #99 Korea ESL Open Cup #98 Americas ESL Open Cup #98 Korea ESL Open Cup #73 Korea ESL Open Cup #72 Korea ESL Open Cup #68 Korea OlimoLeague Week #224 ESL Open Cup #61 Korea ESL Open Cup #41 Korea Kung Fu Cup 2020 Weekly #25 OlimoLeague Week #206 ESL Open Cup #40 Korea ESL Open Cup #28 Korea Kung Fu Cup 2020 Weekly #18 Anonymous #8 Kung Fu Cup Weekly #10 Anonymous #2 Anonymous #1 Kung Fu Cup Weekly #7 Ballistix Brawl: Season 3 Week #4 Ballistix Brawl Week #2 Korean Starcraft League #44 Korean Starcraft League #43 Brawler's Club #38 AfreecaTV Pro Series #29 AfreecaTV Pro Series #24 INu's Battles #6 AfreecaTV Pro Series #10 AfreecaTV Pro Series #4 ITaX Super Series #91 ITaX Ultimate Battles #13 WTL 2021 Summer: DPG vs KaiZi Show Match Onpoong Ultimate Battle #17 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #16 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #15 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #14 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #13 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #9 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #8 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #7 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #6 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #5 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #4 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #3 Polygon Invitational #10 OlimoLeague Invitational #16 WardiTV Weekly S1 Finals Qualifier #1
He won against Serral 4:0 in the final of TeamLiquid StarLeague 6, earning $6000, while Serrals winning against Clem in Homestory Cup only earned him $3500. Over all, Dark has 128 championships, while Serral only has 106! Poor Rogue only has 70, I absolutely agree that he has no chance to be the GOAT. What a Patchzerg, indeed! He was not even trying! I think I just unveiled the last two GOATs, second place: Serral and 1st place: Dark! Thank you for enlightening me, it all makes sense now.
How do you even DARE to bring up the ESL tournamets? They are irrelevant and should be excluded! (unless, of course, when discussing why MaxPax is the best toss in the world)
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
Always been my perception of him, he’s kind of like a deluxe $o$ in a manner of speaking.
Could he show up and win a World Championship? Sure, and would he look good doing it? Absolutely.
But week in, week out, outside of peaking for the big occasion and being ridiculously clutch once we get to Bo7 land, was he the man? Are you sitting there going ‘holy shit man Rogue is just a cut above?’
For me, not really. For me there’s only ever been four such players who’ve been just the absolute best basically by common consensus for any kind of extended period. Mvp, Innovation, Maru and Serral.
Not that this necessarily locks him out from being above any of those by default, but as a tiebreaker with similar enough resumes I think it does keep him from #1
He’s got the longer career, playing in the more refined competitive era post-Kespa and a trophy cabinet over Mvp. He’s got those World Champs over Innovation, I think it’s fair he places above those two despite being a giant fanboy of both. The other two?
Maru - Better in Proleague, a better HoTS career in general. More Starleagues. Also was still posting damn solid results when Terran in general was in the toilet. At his absolute best played StarCraft at a level perhaps nobody else has matched, or certainly even other top Terrans and just those stretches of having that ‘this bloke is the best’ aura. Rogue outdoes Maru in World Champs, and he’s certainly a more clutch player but I don’t think it’s quite enough to outweigh the boxes ticked in Maru’s column.
Serral - Got parity in World Champs, Rogue obviously has the advantage in prestige Starleagues. Elsewhere Serral easily wins the international Premier battle, even if we’re discounting WCS entirely. Serral has the edge in win rates, indeed his are just absolutely beyond literally everyone, to an almost silly degree. He’s got the edge in head to head too, although I’m only factoring it in as this is something of a tiebreaker. They were both making their hay in the same era too. I just don’t see how Rogue can > Serral here given the overall body of work. If Maru is just that damn skilled he can do things others can’t, but maybe lacks that clutch factor if he can’t just outplay an opponent (still rare to be fair), and Rogue is a top tier albeit streaky fellow who is absolutely the definition of clutch, then I guess Serral is pretty close to a combination of the two. His latent skill is so high he basically doesn’t lose, and when he has to step it up mentally while not quite Rogue, equally it’s rare he makes big blunders, or throws won games or gets swept.
Rogue is an absolute demon. His record in bo7s being so dramatically higher than everyone else in the top 10 is ridiculous. He even has the Michael Jordan "never loses finals" stat. Once a sniper in proleague then somehow managed to have a bag of snipe builds so deep he could win any time he really wanted.
For example, Katowice 2020 where he said he just wanted to cheer for his friends and warmup Maru for Serral, but decided to just win tournament instead once Serral got knocked out.
Or the time when Rain won GSL and Rogue just knocked him out the group stage next season with a 6pool.
Whether it's nydus allins, or proxy hatches, hydra timings, or 12pools, or even lategame BL Infestor, he would do whatever would 100% work.
My favourite Rogue game has to be this comeback against Classic.
Even the casters and observers missed the biggest part of this game, that Classic never spotted the second hatch in his main. Rogue won a game he was certain to lose with but 3 drones
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
Rogue's stats in general were never that impressive. It was his results that were
It was almost impossible to imagine Rogue losing a ZvP when it mattered. For the few years before his championships he was a ZvP sniper in Proleague, always taking ace matches for JinAir whenever they knew opponents would field a protoss. And most notable results in individual leagues were knocking legendary protoss players like Rain or Zest out of big tournaments. He also had a much deeper bag of builds than Serral ever did. He would sometimes win ZvP bo5s by nydus worm every game
His legendary finals stats consist of beating herO, Zest, Classic, Stats, Trap, soO, and Maru. You could probably attribute Rogue to be responsible for the drought in protoss championships from 2017 onwards. (Well, at least until every protoss retired)
Look at the multiple Katowice's where Serral lost to Classic and Zest only for them to get annihilated 4-0 by Rogue. Serral has better fundamentals and is more consistent, I'll agree with that. But Rogue just didn't lose to protoss when the stakes were high.
On February 27 2024 17:41 dbRic1203 wrote: Prediction: Dark gets #2 and Maru / Serral share first place I Don t see a World where Dark is ranked lower than Mvp
Dark shouldn’t be lower that TY sos soo or rain. His resume is far superior than TY
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Stlll better achievement than the last couple years of GSL
Rogue be like: destroy everyone win the World Championship do the lamest trophy lifting in e-sports admit Zerg is imba bombing out first round in next tournament repeat
On February 27 2024 23:58 yht9657 wrote: Rogue be like: destroy everyone win the World Championship do the lamest trophy lifting in e-sports admit Zerg is imba bombing out first round in next tournament repeat
Absolute chad.
LOL. This is actually the best summation of the Rogue experience. The consummate Maverick!
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
On February 27 2024 23:06 Fango wrote: Rogue is an absolute demon. His record in bo7s being so dramatically higher than everyone else in the top 10 is ridiculous. He even has the Michael Jordan "never loses finals" stat. Once a sniper in proleague then somehow managed to have a bag of snipe builds so deep he could win any time he really wanted.
For example, Katowice 2020 where he said he just wanted to cheer for his friends and warmup Maru for Serral, but decided to just win tournament instead once Serral got knocked out.
Or the time when Rain won GSL and Rogue just knocked him out the group stage next season with a 6pool.
Whether it's nydus allins, or proxy hatches, hydra timings, or 12pools, or even lategame BL Infestor, he would do whatever would 100% work.
My favourite Rogue game has to be this comeback against Classic. Even the casters and observers missed the biggest part of this game, that Classic never spotted the second hatch in his main. Rogue won a game he was certain to lose with but 3 drones
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
That must be Serral, surely?
Agree with much here though, the Bo7 record is a remarkable stat indeed. It does really cement his clutch status.
That said I think it is somewhat inflated by him being so streaky. You definitionally only play Bo7 offline matches if you’re making finals. A player who can still make finals while not 100% is going to have a worse record than a streaky player who either bombs out or peaks hard.
Looking into the stats here. Some caveats before I splurge. Ideally there would be a ‘Premier’ filter on Aligulac. Unless I’m messing up, which wouldn’t be the first time, the Covid era making previous offline prestige tournaments, online does make it less of an elegant filter.
It’s a workaround that isn’t perfect, filters applied - Bo5+, Korean opposition, offline. This has the downside of excluding someone like Reynor, and Premier offline tournaments, but I think it’s a decent baseline:
Rogue is 212–163(56.53%) in games and 53–36(59.55%) in matches.
Maru is 320–247(56.44%) in games and 79–51(60.77%) in matches.
Serral is 136–89(60.44%) in games and 35–19 (64.81%) in matches.
I tried filtering for other things, but if you use the offline filter you end up injecting a load of non-Premier tournaments.
On the first pass at least Rogue may be by far the best finals player of the three, but is actually the worst in playoff territory in general, albeit not by much.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
Rogue's stats in general were never that impressive. It was his results that were
It was almost impossible to imagine Rogue losing a ZvP when it mattered. For the few years before his championships he was a ZvP sniper in Proleague, always taking ace matches for JinAir whenever they knew opponents would field a protoss. And most notable results in individual leagues were knocking legendary protoss players like Rain or Zest out of big tournaments. He also had a much deeper bag of builds than Serral ever did. He would sometimes win ZvP bo5s by nydus worm every game
His legendary finals stats consist of beating herO, Zest, Classic, Stats, Trap, soO, and Maru. You could probably attribute Rogue to be responsible for the drought in protoss championships from 2017 onwards. (Well, at least until every protoss retired)
Look at the multiple Katowice's where Serral lost to Classic and Zest only for them to get annihilated 4-0 by Rogue. Serral has better fundamentals and is more consistent, I'll agree with that. But Rogue just didn't lose to protoss when the stakes were high.
But this is just conflating him being great at ZvP with him being great at finals. Rogue demolished everyone in finals. It happened that they were mostly tosses, but considering his overall ZvP, it seems clear that was more just being great at finals than anything unique in ZvP.
And uh your "deep bag of builds" is my imbalanced nydus worm and swarmhost strats. Not impressed. To be honest, to the extent anyone wants to diminish modern results based on balance, Rogue should be the #1 victim of that. Guy was abusive as all heck.
Rogue: 11 champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish Maru: 15 champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish
If you discount the region-lock tournaments, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals appearance than Maru and Serral. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. Serral's finals appearance is close to Maru but has better winrate, he's also super consistent in top 4 finish but has a shorter career than Maru.
For me it always felt like if Rogue is not 100% he would often just bomb out of a tournament really early. While the corpse of Maru and Serral would still usually ends up in the semifinals or so, because their latency skill level is so high. I am still not quite sure if I should hold Rogue's absurd finals winrate as an argument for him or slightly against him, since it partially indicates his inconsistency compared to the other two.
It's different than MJ vs LeBron debate of 6-0 vs 4-6 in finals. In MJ's prime there was this invincibility aura about him, he just won't lose, MJ and Bulls tower over everyone in the league. You feel the same way about Serral, Maru and Innovation in their best years, but rarely so for Rogue, even if he won so many.
I get that some people like to say Serral's EU tournaments are not as competitive as GSL, I would agree in principle but you can't just wipe off all his success in EU like that. Going through prime Reynor and Clem is still quite an achievement. Maru almost won last year Katowice by beating Solar, Ragnarock and Oliveira (if he played "normally"), I'd say that's a weaker line up than a lot of Serral's EU WCS and DH wins. You can give those EU tournaments a 30% discount in "premiere-ness", but to straight up pretend they don't matter is just blatant bias.
Bonus: Dark: 8 champions, 13 second place, 18 semifinal finish. Look at how they massacred my boi
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
Rogue's stats in general were never that impressive. It was his results that were
It was almost impossible to imagine Rogue losing a ZvP when it mattered. For the few years before his championships he was a ZvP sniper in Proleague, always taking ace matches for JinAir whenever they knew opponents would field a protoss. And most notable results in individual leagues were knocking legendary protoss players like Rain or Zest out of big tournaments. He also had a much deeper bag of builds than Serral ever did. He would sometimes win ZvP bo5s by nydus worm every game
His legendary finals stats consist of beating herO, Zest, Classic, Stats, Trap, soO, and Maru. You could probably attribute Rogue to be responsible for the drought in protoss championships from 2017 onwards. (Well, at least until every protoss retired)
Look at the multiple Katowice's where Serral lost to Classic and Zest only for them to get annihilated 4-0 by Rogue. Serral has better fundamentals and is more consistent, I'll agree with that. But Rogue just didn't lose to protoss when the stakes were high.
But this is just conflating him being great at ZvP with him being great at finals. Rogue demolished everyone in finals. It happened that they were mostly tosses, but considering his overall ZvP, it seems clear that was more just being great at finals than anything unique in ZvP.
And uh your "deep bag of builds" is my imbalanced nydus worm and swarmhost strats. Not impressed. To be honest, to the extent anyone wants to diminish modern results based on balance, Rogue should be the #1 victim of that. Guy was abusive as all heck.
They were almost all tosses he demolished in finals. Tosses that bested all the other zergs to get there
I agree he abused balance more than anyone else. But he did what Serral couldn't in terms of aggressive builds and variety. You think Serral didn't nydus or proxy hatch Classic and Zest because of honour or something? No, it's because he didn't have the bag of builds Rogue did. Rogue also beat them both in split maps in the same series, it's not like he was cheese only, he had the biggest bag of any zerg player.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
Rogue's stats in general were never that impressive. It was his results that were
It was almost impossible to imagine Rogue losing a ZvP when it mattered. For the few years before his championships he was a ZvP sniper in Proleague, always taking ace matches for JinAir whenever they knew opponents would field a protoss. And most notable results in individual leagues were knocking legendary protoss players like Rain or Zest out of big tournaments. He also had a much deeper bag of builds than Serral ever did. He would sometimes win ZvP bo5s by nydus worm every game
His legendary finals stats consist of beating herO, Zest, Classic, Stats, Trap, soO, and Maru. You could probably attribute Rogue to be responsible for the drought in protoss championships from 2017 onwards. (Well, at least until every protoss retired)
Look at the multiple Katowice's where Serral lost to Classic and Zest only for them to get annihilated 4-0 by Rogue. Serral has better fundamentals and is more consistent, I'll agree with that. But Rogue just didn't lose to protoss when the stakes were high.
But this is just conflating him being great at ZvP with him being great at finals. Rogue demolished everyone in finals. It happened that they were mostly tosses, but considering his overall ZvP, it seems clear that was more just being great at finals than anything unique in ZvP.
And uh your "deep bag of builds" is my imbalanced nydus worm and swarmhost strats. Not impressed. To be honest, to the extent anyone wants to diminish modern results based on balance, Rogue should be the #1 victim of that. Guy was abusive as all heck.
That doesn't make any sense. Everyone playing a race has the same tools at their disposal. You don't punish player A disproportionally more than player B because of the way he chose to use the tools.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
Rogue's stats in general were never that impressive. It was his results that were
It was almost impossible to imagine Rogue losing a ZvP when it mattered. For the few years before his championships he was a ZvP sniper in Proleague, always taking ace matches for JinAir whenever they knew opponents would field a protoss. And most notable results in individual leagues were knocking legendary protoss players like Rain or Zest out of big tournaments. He also had a much deeper bag of builds than Serral ever did. He would sometimes win ZvP bo5s by nydus worm every game
His legendary finals stats consist of beating herO, Zest, Classic, Stats, Trap, soO, and Maru. You could probably attribute Rogue to be responsible for the drought in protoss championships from 2017 onwards. (Well, at least until every protoss retired)
Look at the multiple Katowice's where Serral lost to Classic and Zest only for them to get annihilated 4-0 by Rogue. Serral has better fundamentals and is more consistent, I'll agree with that. But Rogue just didn't lose to protoss when the stakes were high.
But this is just conflating him being great at ZvP with him being great at finals. Rogue demolished everyone in finals. It happened that they were mostly tosses, but considering his overall ZvP, it seems clear that was more just being great at finals than anything unique in ZvP.
And uh your "deep bag of builds" is my imbalanced nydus worm and swarmhost strats. Not impressed. To be honest, to the extent anyone wants to diminish modern results based on balance, Rogue should be the #1 victim of that. Guy was abusive as all heck.
That doesn't make any sense. Everyone playing a race has the same tools at their disposal. You don't punish player A disproportionally more than player B because of the way he chose to use the tools.
I didn't say that I was necessarily subscribing to that philosophy. But I think it's completely fair that if (1) you think Zerg was broken because of, for instance, invulnerable nyduses and swarm host ZvP; and (2) you want to discount a player's legacy because a race was OP, then (3) you should discredit a player who actually abused the imbalance more than someone who did not.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
Rogue's stats in general were never that impressive. It was his results that were
It was almost impossible to imagine Rogue losing a ZvP when it mattered. For the few years before his championships he was a ZvP sniper in Proleague, always taking ace matches for JinAir whenever they knew opponents would field a protoss. And most notable results in individual leagues were knocking legendary protoss players like Rain or Zest out of big tournaments. He also had a much deeper bag of builds than Serral ever did. He would sometimes win ZvP bo5s by nydus worm every game
His legendary finals stats consist of beating herO, Zest, Classic, Stats, Trap, soO, and Maru. You could probably attribute Rogue to be responsible for the drought in protoss championships from 2017 onwards. (Well, at least until every protoss retired)
Look at the multiple Katowice's where Serral lost to Classic and Zest only for them to get annihilated 4-0 by Rogue. Serral has better fundamentals and is more consistent, I'll agree with that. But Rogue just didn't lose to protoss when the stakes were high.
But this is just conflating him being great at ZvP with him being great at finals. Rogue demolished everyone in finals. It happened that they were mostly tosses, but considering his overall ZvP, it seems clear that was more just being great at finals than anything unique in ZvP.
And uh your "deep bag of builds" is my imbalanced nydus worm and swarmhost strats. Not impressed. To be honest, to the extent anyone wants to diminish modern results based on balance, Rogue should be the #1 victim of that. Guy was abusive as all heck.
That doesn't make any sense. Everyone playing a race has the same tools at their disposal. You don't punish player A disproportionally more than player B because of the way he chose to use the tools.
I didn't say that I was necessarily subscribing to that philosophy. But I think it's completely fair that if (1) you think Zerg was broken because of, for instance, invulnerable nyduses and swarm host ZvP; and (2) you want to discount a player's legacy because a race was OP, then (3) you should discredit a player who actually abused the imbalance more than someone who did not.
Surely you have to admit even if you don't use the op strategy, the builds being in the game will impact your opponents builds and strategies. Therefore every single zerg got the advantage even if they couldn't necessarily execute it
Hardly remarkable. Sure, mostly not sub 50%. But barely greater than it.
On February 28 2024 00:33 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:11 Pandain wrote:
On February 27 2024 23:43 Fango wrote:
On February 27 2024 23:18 Pandain wrote:
On February 27 2024 23:06 Fango wrote:
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
Rogue's stats in general were never that impressive. It was his results that were
It was almost impossible to imagine Rogue losing a ZvP when it mattered. For the few years before his championships he was a ZvP sniper in Proleague, always taking ace matches for JinAir whenever they knew opponents would field a protoss. And most notable results in individual leagues were knocking legendary protoss players like Rain or Zest out of big tournaments. He also had a much deeper bag of builds than Serral ever did. He would sometimes win ZvP bo5s by nydus worm every game
His legendary finals stats consist of beating herO, Zest, Classic, Stats, Trap, soO, and Maru. You could probably attribute Rogue to be responsible for the drought in protoss championships from 2017 onwards. (Well, at least until every protoss retired)
Look at the multiple Katowice's where Serral lost to Classic and Zest only for them to get annihilated 4-0 by Rogue. Serral has better fundamentals and is more consistent, I'll agree with that. But Rogue just didn't lose to protoss when the stakes were high.
But this is just conflating him being great at ZvP with him being great at finals. Rogue demolished everyone in finals. It happened that they were mostly tosses, but considering his overall ZvP, it seems clear that was more just being great at finals than anything unique in ZvP.
And uh your "deep bag of builds" is my imbalanced nydus worm and swarmhost strats. Not impressed. To be honest, to the extent anyone wants to diminish modern results based on balance, Rogue should be the #1 victim of that. Guy was abusive as all heck.
That doesn't make any sense. Everyone playing a race has the same tools at their disposal. You don't punish player A disproportionally more than player B because of the way he chose to use the tools.
I didn't say that I was necessarily subscribing to that philosophy. But I think it's completely fair that if (1) you think Zerg was broken because of, for instance, invulnerable nyduses and swarm host ZvP; and (2) you want to discount a player's legacy because a race was OP, then (3) you should discredit a player who actually abused the imbalance more than someone who did not.
Surely you have to admit even if you don't use the op strategy, the builds being in the game will impact your opponents builds and strategies. Therefore every single zerg got the advantage even if they couldn't necessarily execute it
I completely agree every player of a race balances from imbalance even if they don't actively use the imbalanced strat, for the reasons you mentioned. But my point is a narrow one: you should discredit a player's achievements more who actually used the imbalanced strats, even if you also discredit to some extent other players of the same race who did not.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
One can have a little scroll, under those filters I mentioned.
It’s abundantly clear that Rogue is absolutely an elite ZvPer, Serral’s numbers are still better.
There are guys in that span that Rogue played, JYP, Billowy, latter day MC. Two guys even me who lists his official residence as Team Liquid haven’t heard of in Dandy and Yeri. A guy called YB who Rogue actually lost to.
Serral’s list isn’t exclusively absolute elite Korean Toss players who were all in peak form either, don’t get me wrong but it’s about as close as you can realistically get.
Hardly remarkable. Sure, mostly not sub 50%. But barely greater than it.
On February 28 2024 00:33 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:11 Pandain wrote:
On February 27 2024 23:43 Fango wrote:
On February 27 2024 23:18 Pandain wrote:
On February 27 2024 23:06 Fango wrote:
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
Rogue's stats in general were never that impressive. It was his results that were
It was almost impossible to imagine Rogue losing a ZvP when it mattered. For the few years before his championships he was a ZvP sniper in Proleague, always taking ace matches for JinAir whenever they knew opponents would field a protoss. And most notable results in individual leagues were knocking legendary protoss players like Rain or Zest out of big tournaments. He also had a much deeper bag of builds than Serral ever did. He would sometimes win ZvP bo5s by nydus worm every game
His legendary finals stats consist of beating herO, Zest, Classic, Stats, Trap, soO, and Maru. You could probably attribute Rogue to be responsible for the drought in protoss championships from 2017 onwards. (Well, at least until every protoss retired)
Look at the multiple Katowice's where Serral lost to Classic and Zest only for them to get annihilated 4-0 by Rogue. Serral has better fundamentals and is more consistent, I'll agree with that. But Rogue just didn't lose to protoss when the stakes were high.
But this is just conflating him being great at ZvP with him being great at finals. Rogue demolished everyone in finals. It happened that they were mostly tosses, but considering his overall ZvP, it seems clear that was more just being great at finals than anything unique in ZvP.
And uh your "deep bag of builds" is my imbalanced nydus worm and swarmhost strats. Not impressed. To be honest, to the extent anyone wants to diminish modern results based on balance, Rogue should be the #1 victim of that. Guy was abusive as all heck.
That doesn't make any sense. Everyone playing a race has the same tools at their disposal. You don't punish player A disproportionally more than player B because of the way he chose to use the tools.
I didn't say that I was necessarily subscribing to that philosophy. But I think it's completely fair that if (1) you think Zerg was broken because of, for instance, invulnerable nyduses and swarm host ZvP; and (2) you want to discount a player's legacy because a race was OP, then (3) you should discredit a player who actually abused the imbalance more than someone who did not.
Surely you have to admit even if you don't use the op strategy, the builds being in the game will impact your opponents builds and strategies. Therefore every single zerg got the advantage even if they couldn't necessarily execute it
I completely agree every player of a race balances from imbalance even if they don't actively use the imbalanced strat, for the reasons you mentioned. But my point is a narrow one: you should discredit a player's achievements more who actually used the imbalanced strats, even if you also discredit to some extent other players of the same race who did not.
I guess we just disagree. If someone all ind with zerg during bl/infestor and won tournaments because most of their opponents were greeding up to combat bl/infestor, to me it's the same as just bl/infestoring people in terms of balance abuse.
On February 28 2024 00:50 Pandain wrote: I didn't say that I was necessarily subscribing to that philosophy. But I think it's completely fair that if (1) you think Zerg was broken because of, for instance, invulnerable nyduses and swarm host ZvP; and (2) you want to discount a player's legacy because a race was OP, then (3) you should discredit a player who actually abused the imbalance more than someone who did not.
Serral abused zerg as well. He just didn't find any success with the cheesier aspect of it. Lingbane hydra was imba, nydus was imba, dropperlord rushes were imba, BL/Infestor was imba, swarm hosts were imba, hell Rogue even made proxy hatches and 6/12 pool look imba. The difference is that Serral couldn't pull off half of them, or perhaps lacked Rogue's ability to know when they would work. Do you really prefer Serral's perfect macro and stats when he lost in World Championships to protoss players who go on to get 4-0'd by Rogue?
As for the stats, Rogue played against his fellow Koreans far more than Serral did. From 2017 onwards, 370 matches to Serral's less than 100. Of course the numbers skew towards 50%. If Serral played Koreans 4x as much, his stats would skew as well (or maybe not if he's truly inhuman)
Most of those online events were no more important to Rogue as ladder games probably were. That's why adjusting for offline tournaments is important. Even if there were a few big events in 2021 that were online, it's better to exclude them than to including every ESL weekly that happened
But even then, Rogue's winrates aren't what give him top 3 GOAT status, it's his trophy collection and winrate's in finals. Almost all of which came against protoss. I think its reasonable to say a top 3 GOAT candidate who's wins almost all came from one matchup was maybe the best at that matchup. Add to that his history as the best ZvP sniper in proleague, winning famous ace matches against herO, Zest etc when they were the reigning Starleague champions.
Hardly remarkable. Sure, mostly not sub 50%. But barely greater than it.
On February 28 2024 00:33 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:11 Pandain wrote:
On February 27 2024 23:43 Fango wrote:
On February 27 2024 23:18 Pandain wrote:
On February 27 2024 23:06 Fango wrote:
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
Rogue's stats in general were never that impressive. It was his results that were
It was almost impossible to imagine Rogue losing a ZvP when it mattered. For the few years before his championships he was a ZvP sniper in Proleague, always taking ace matches for JinAir whenever they knew opponents would field a protoss. And most notable results in individual leagues were knocking legendary protoss players like Rain or Zest out of big tournaments. He also had a much deeper bag of builds than Serral ever did. He would sometimes win ZvP bo5s by nydus worm every game
His legendary finals stats consist of beating herO, Zest, Classic, Stats, Trap, soO, and Maru. You could probably attribute Rogue to be responsible for the drought in protoss championships from 2017 onwards. (Well, at least until every protoss retired)
Look at the multiple Katowice's where Serral lost to Classic and Zest only for them to get annihilated 4-0 by Rogue. Serral has better fundamentals and is more consistent, I'll agree with that. But Rogue just didn't lose to protoss when the stakes were high.
But this is just conflating him being great at ZvP with him being great at finals. Rogue demolished everyone in finals. It happened that they were mostly tosses, but considering his overall ZvP, it seems clear that was more just being great at finals than anything unique in ZvP.
And uh your "deep bag of builds" is my imbalanced nydus worm and swarmhost strats. Not impressed. To be honest, to the extent anyone wants to diminish modern results based on balance, Rogue should be the #1 victim of that. Guy was abusive as all heck.
That doesn't make any sense. Everyone playing a race has the same tools at their disposal. You don't punish player A disproportionally more than player B because of the way he chose to use the tools.
I didn't say that I was necessarily subscribing to that philosophy. But I think it's completely fair that if (1) you think Zerg was broken because of, for instance, invulnerable nyduses and swarm host ZvP; and (2) you want to discount a player's legacy because a race was OP, then (3) you should discredit a player who actually abused the imbalance more than someone who did not.
Surely you have to admit even if you don't use the op strategy, the builds being in the game will impact your opponents builds and strategies. Therefore every single zerg got the advantage even if they couldn't necessarily execute it
I completely agree every player of a race balances from imbalance even if they don't actively use the imbalanced strat, for the reasons you mentioned. But my point is a narrow one: you should discredit a player's achievements more who actually used the imbalanced strats, even if you also discredit to some extent other players of the same race who did not.
I guess we just disagree. If someone all ind with zerg during bl/infestor and won tournaments because most of their opponents were greeding up to combat bl/infestor, to me it's the same as just bl/infestoring people in terms of balance abuse.
Simplified example ofc.
Gotta use your tools, Rogue was damn good at it.
As a huge Trap fanboy seeing him get Nydus/Swarmhosted to death still pains me, but Rogue played an incredible series in terms of pure ruthlessness, and respect there.
Also he was still generally competitive playing more standard and from my memory he pocketed the really abusive stuff for the crunch games, unlike say the BL/Infestor era where it felt Zergs were pretty consistently leaning on it who’d never really done much before or after outside of that style.
I still feel like a guy like Roro was a bloody skilled StarCraft player and is a bit unfairly forgotten. I’m pretty sure I’m the first person to have mentioned him on here in at least 2 years.
Or someone like Byul, possibly the most underrated player in SC2 history who didn’t even lean heavily on BL/Infestor at all and for some reason is like absolutely never mentioned! As Khaldor once memorably said that’s Byulshit
On February 27 2024 17:41 dbRic1203 wrote: Prediction: Dark gets #2 and Maru / Serral share first place I Don t see a World where Dark is ranked lower than Mvp
Congrats to Rogue on placing No. 3 on the greatest players of all time list in 2024! Miss seeing his success and play in offline tournaments. I wonder what kind of form he'll be in once he does come back from military deployment.
On February 28 2024 00:50 Pandain wrote: I didn't say that I was necessarily subscribing to that philosophy. But I think it's completely fair that if (1) you think Zerg was broken because of, for instance, invulnerable nyduses and swarm host ZvP; and (2) you want to discount a player's legacy because a race was OP, then (3) you should discredit a player who actually abused the imbalance more than someone who did not.
Serral abused zerg as well. He just didn't find any success with the cheesier aspect of it. Lingbane hydra was imba, nydus was imba, dropperlord rushes were imba, BL/Infestor was imba, swarm hosts were imba, hell Rogue even made proxy hatches and 6/12 pool look imba. The difference is that Serral couldn't pull off half of them, or perhaps lacked Rogue's ability to know when they would work. Do you really prefer Serral's perfect macro and stats when he lost in World Championships to protoss players who go on to get 4-0'd by Rogue?
As for the stats, Rogue played against his fellow Koreans far more than Serral did. From 2017 onwards, 370 matches to Serral's less than 100. Of course the numbers skew towards 50%. If Serral played Koreans 4x as much, his stats would skew as well (or maybe not if he's truly inhuman)
Most of those online events were no more important to Rogue as ladder games probably were. That's why adjusting for offline tournaments is important. Even if there were a few big events in 2021 that were online, it's better to exclude them than to including every ESL weekly that happened
But even then, Rogue's winrates aren't what give him top 3 GOAT status, it's his trophy collection and winrate's in finals. Almost all of which came against protoss. I think its reasonable to say a top 3 GOAT candidate who's wins almost all came from one matchup was maybe the best at that matchup. Add to that his history as the best ZvP sniper in proleague, winning famous ace matches against herO, Zest etc when they were the reigning Starleague champions.
Rogue copium I say!
Serral’s numbers are better against better opposition on average. Not discussing GOATNESS currently but the best ZvPer question specifically.
As per the bolded, Zest literally showed his entire hand of cards and build optimisations to take Serral out in Katowice 2020, and still it went to the decider. Then Rogue just rinsed him because he’d seen his opponent’s cards. Full credit to Rogue for his StarCraft brain, but if you reverse the order the matches took place in and Zest narrowly beats Rogue, Serral would stomp him as well.
We go to Wombat’s LawTM (I’ll force wider adoption sometime) where a Protoss can beat even the best Zerg in a playoff bracket, but almost never two in a run because they’ve had to show their bag of tricks.
The inverse is also true incidentally as per my argument. Classic had to dig so deep he did one of the all-time great risky pocket builds to take Rogue out, and Serral just smacked him.
It's so easy to focus only on Rogue's finals winnings and act like every other time when he lost to Protoss he just "doesn't care".
It's almost like Serral also regularly destorys Korean top Protoss but on higher rates than Rogue, as listed by WombaT above. Sample size stops being an excuse when it's close to 100 matches against the absolute best players on biggest international tournaments. It's not his fault that he more often run into Protoss in elimination matches that's not finals therefore got ignored by certain people.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
On February 28 2024 00:50 Pandain wrote: I didn't say that I was necessarily subscribing to that philosophy. But I think it's completely fair that if (1) you think Zerg was broken because of, for instance, invulnerable nyduses and swarm host ZvP; and (2) you want to discount a player's legacy because a race was OP, then (3) you should discredit a player who actually abused the imbalance more than someone who did not.
Serral abused zerg as well. He just didn't find any success with the cheesier aspect of it. Lingbane hydra was imba, nydus was imba, dropperlord rushes were imba, BL/Infestor was imba, swarm hosts were imba, hell Rogue even made proxy hatches and 6/12 pool look imba. The difference is that Serral couldn't pull off half of them, or perhaps lacked Rogue's ability to know when they would work. Do you really prefer Serral's perfect macro and stats when he lost in World Championships to protoss players who go on to get 4-0'd by Rogue?
As for the stats, Rogue played against his fellow Koreans far more than Serral did. From 2017 onwards, 370 matches to Serral's less than 100. Of course the numbers skew towards 50%. If Serral played Koreans 4x as much, his stats would skew as well (or maybe not if he's truly inhuman)
Most of those online events were no more important to Rogue as ladder games probably were. That's why adjusting for offline tournaments is important. Even if there were a few big events in 2021 that were online, it's better to exclude them than to including every ESL weekly that happened
But even then, Rogue's winrates aren't what give him top 3 GOAT status, it's his trophy collection and winrate's in finals. Almost all of which came against protoss. I think its reasonable to say a top 3 GOAT candidate who's wins almost all came from one matchup was maybe the best at that matchup. Add to that his history as the best ZvP sniper in proleague, winning famous ace matches against herO, Zest etc when they were the reigning Starleague champions.
Yeah I think people forgot that Serral at GSL vs the world 2019 abused BL/Infestor to its fullest against Trap and Classic with some of the most disgusting games I've seen in there
On February 28 2024 00:50 Pandain wrote: I didn't say that I was necessarily subscribing to that philosophy. But I think it's completely fair that if (1) you think Zerg was broken because of, for instance, invulnerable nyduses and swarm host ZvP; and (2) you want to discount a player's legacy because a race was OP, then (3) you should discredit a player who actually abused the imbalance more than someone who did not.
Serral abused zerg as well. He just didn't find any success with the cheesier aspect of it. Lingbane hydra was imba, nydus was imba, dropperlord rushes were imba, BL/Infestor was imba, swarm hosts were imba, hell Rogue even made proxy hatches and 6/12 pool look imba. The difference is that Serral couldn't pull off half of them, or perhaps lacked Rogue's ability to know when they would work. Do you really prefer Serral's perfect macro and stats when he lost in World Championships to protoss players who go on to get 4-0'd by Rogue?
As for the stats, Rogue played against his fellow Koreans far more than Serral did. From 2017 onwards, 370 matches to Serral's less than 100. Of course the numbers skew towards 50%. If Serral played Koreans 4x as much, his stats would skew as well (or maybe not if he's truly inhuman)
Most of those online events were no more important to Rogue as ladder games probably were. That's why adjusting for offline tournaments is important. Even if there were a few big events in 2021 that were online, it's better to exclude them than to including every ESL weekly that happened
But even then, Rogue's winrates aren't what give him top 3 GOAT status, it's his trophy collection and winrate's in finals. Almost all of which came against protoss. I think its reasonable to say a top 3 GOAT candidate who's wins almost all came from one matchup was maybe the best at that matchup. Add to that his history as the best ZvP sniper in proleague, winning famous ace matches against herO, Zest etc when they were the reigning Starleague champions.
Rogue copium I say!
Serral’s numbers are better against better opposition on average. Not discussing GOATNESS currently but the best ZvPer question specifically.
As per the bolded, Zest literally showed his entire hand of cards and build optimisations to take Serral out in Katowice 2020, and still it went to the decider. Then Rogue just rinsed him because he’d seen his opponent’s cards. Full credit to Rogue for his StarCraft brain, but if you reverse the order the matches took place in and Zest narrowly beats Rogue, Serral would stomp him as well.
We go to Wombat’s LawTM (I’ll force wider adoption sometime) where a Protoss can beat even the best Zerg in a playoff bracket, but almost never two in a run because they’ve had to show their bag of tricks. The inverse is also true incidentally as per my argument. Classic had to dig so deep he did one of the all-time great risky pocket builds to take Rogue out, and Serral just smacked him.
Assuming you mean Classic infamous Blink DT and proxy robo to beat Rogue at Blizzcon, it was Dark who smacked him not Serral.
I'll admit there's probably some aspect of luck that protoss players spent their cards beating other zergs and Rogue got to swoop in later. But even within those series Rogue was showing much greater variety and adaptability than Serral. For example Katowice at 2020, Zest kept blocking Serral's natural, after he tried it against Rogue, the latter would simply build his hatch earlier even if it's technically less efficient.
At Katowice 2018 Rogue really did the entire kitchen sink at Classic to 4-0 him. He didn't let Classic catch him off guard or play his sneaky timings that just 3-0'd Serral. Serral just didn't have those builds in the bag, he was stuck playing reactive and didn't adapt across the series
edit: for the record I think Serral is better all-time, and personally despise Rogue whenever he'd win with some bullshit. But Rogue is the ultimate ZvP sniper. He could do every build you'd ever heard off and many you haven't heard off. He would abuse the lategame like other zergs, but whenever a protoss rose up, kill them with cheese.
On February 27 2024 10:16 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: While Rogue doesn't win the honor of being the Greatest of All Time in my eyes, he's certainly the greatest of something. The greatest champion? The greatest big-match player? The greatest son-of-a-b**** you never want to face in an important game? Whatever you call it, Rogue had a special quality that separates him from everyone else on this list.
Perfect summary imo. You kinda sold Rogue was #3 when you said the #3 spot deserved a whole blog post of games, so I was a bit disappointed since SC2 is about winning when it matters... and God was Rogue disgustingly good at that, so the fan in me hoped Rogue would be a sort of unexpected #1 when you started the series. But I completely get your points. Yeah, Rogue is probably not the greatest SC2 player of all time, but he's definitely the greatest SC2 winner, and the #1 in my heart
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Wow...I don't even know what to say to you...other than that you're completely missing the point.
No one is saying that it's any one tourney that matters. Are you lost? If you think single-handedly taking a nation to win against everyone, including S Korea, and winning 7 or 8 HSCs, out of 10, were an easy feat, you are most definitely lost. Do you not understand the concept of statistical outliers? Yeah, even players like marinelord, Scarlett, and Oliveira can have a really good day. Are you going to try and put down those championship tournaments those other two won as well because they were statistical outliers? By the way, around that time, marinelord was no slouch, either.
OK, I get your point. Statistics matters, even though some of the results are less important than the others. A championship is a championship, after all. So small tournaments like Nation Wars and Homestory Cups are important, too.
Then, I'm pretty sure, the absolute GOAT must be... Dark! Look at this long list of tournaments that he won!
World Team League 2022 Winter World Team League 2022 Summer DH SC2 Masters 2022 Valencia World Team League 2021 Winter 2021 Global StarCraft II League Season 2 TeamLiquid StarLeague 6 Gold Series Team Championship 2020 Spring 2019 WCS Global Finals 2019 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2 2019 GSL vs. The World: Teams Competition 2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S 2017 GSL vs. The World: Teams Competition 2016 WCS Korea Season 2 Cross Finals Archon Show Match 2016 WCS Korea Season 2 Cross Finals 2016 StarCraft II StarLeague Season 1: Main Event OSC Championship Season 11 WardiTV 2023 WardiTV Spring Championship 2023 World Team League 2022 Winter AfreecaTV Champions Cup Gladiators' Cup NeXT 2020 Spring Cursory Cup WardiTV Winter Championship 2023: NA Server Qualifier #1 LiuLi Cup #7 HU x StarCraft II Global Virtual Tournament KSL Summer Slam Afreeca World 104 Afreeca World 99 OlimoLeague Invitational #8 Theatre of Dreams 1 QCL: Power Overwhelming Pro Teamleague 2018 ONPOONG StarCraft 2 MASTERS Season 3 BTSL S2: Korea OlimoLeague Monthly Finals: October 2020 ESL Open Cup #215 Korea Korean Starcraft League #40 ESL Open Cup #207 Americas Kung Fu Cup 2023 Winter Weekly #11 ESL Open Cup #205 Korea Korean Starcraft League #38 ESL Open Cup #203 Americas ESL Open Cup #202 Korea ESL Open Cup #199 Korea Kung Fu Cup 2023 Winter Weekly #2 ESL Open Cup #194 Korea Korean Starcraft League #27 ESL Open Cup #192 Americas ESL Open Cup #191 Korea ESL Open Cup #190 Korea ESL Open Cup #189 Americas ESL Open Cup #189 Korea Korean Starcraft League #23 Korean Starcraft League #21 Korean Starcraft League #20 Korean Starcraft League #19 ESL Open Cup #182 Korea Korean Starcraft League #17 Kung Fu Cup 2023 Weekly #8 ESL Open Cup #178 Korea Korean Starcraft League #11 ESL Open Cup #172 Korea ESL Open Cup #171 Americas ESL Open Cup #171 Korea ESL Open Cup #170 Korea ESL Open Cup #169 Korea ESL Open Cup #168 Korea ESL Open Cup #167 Korea ESL Open Cup #166 Korea ESL Open Cup #161 Korea ESL Open Cup #160 Korea ESL Open Cup #159 Americas Goodgame Cup #30 ESL Open Cup #155 Korea ESL Open Cup #154 Korea ESL Open Cup #151 Korea ESL Open Cup #150 Korea ESL Open Cup #148 Korea ESL Open Cup #145 Americas ESL Open Cup #124 Korea ESL Open Cup #100 Korea ESL Open Cup #99 Korea ESL Open Cup #98 Americas ESL Open Cup #98 Korea ESL Open Cup #73 Korea ESL Open Cup #72 Korea ESL Open Cup #68 Korea OlimoLeague Week #224 ESL Open Cup #61 Korea ESL Open Cup #41 Korea Kung Fu Cup 2020 Weekly #25 OlimoLeague Week #206 ESL Open Cup #40 Korea ESL Open Cup #28 Korea Kung Fu Cup 2020 Weekly #18 Anonymous #8 Kung Fu Cup Weekly #10 Anonymous #2 Anonymous #1 Kung Fu Cup Weekly #7 Ballistix Brawl: Season 3 Week #4 Ballistix Brawl Week #2 Korean Starcraft League #44 Korean Starcraft League #43 Brawler's Club #38 AfreecaTV Pro Series #29 AfreecaTV Pro Series #24 INu's Battles #6 AfreecaTV Pro Series #10 AfreecaTV Pro Series #4 ITaX Super Series #91 ITaX Ultimate Battles #13 WTL 2021 Summer: DPG vs KaiZi Show Match Onpoong Ultimate Battle #17 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #16 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #15 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #14 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #13 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #9 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #8 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #7 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #6 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #5 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #4 Onpoong Ultimate Battle #3 Polygon Invitational #10 OlimoLeague Invitational #16 WardiTV Weekly S1 Finals Qualifier #1
He won against Serral 4:0 in the final of TeamLiquid StarLeague 6, earning $6000, while Serrals winning against Clem in Homestory Cup only earned him $3500. Over all, Dark has 128 championships, while Serral only has 106! Poor Rogue only has 70, I absolutely agree that he has no chance to be the GOAT. What a Patchzerg, indeed! He was not even trying! I think I just unveiled the last two GOATs, second place: Serral and 1st place: Dark! Thank you for enlightening me, it all makes sense now.
This is why I said Dark is definitely high on my own list, and I have him next to Rogue. Dark only has two fewer Code S victories, but many, many 2nd-4th placements in Code S and Super Tournaments. Rogue is far too inconsistent, and he didn't provide nearly as much content for the community as Dark. Dark is now in the million dollars prize money league for a reason. Gotta respect that.
It's people like Dark, Clem, and other weekly warriors that provide the bulk of content for fans to enjoy, while they wait for the next big one. This, to me, counts for a lot. From small to big tournaments, Dark was very successful in his own right. To not include him would be criminal. That said, I do weigh all the wins accordingly. Global weeklies get weighed much more heavily than regional weeklies, so the numerous Kung Fu cups are more valuable than regional weeklies, and global major tournaments are another order of magnitude more value, with HSCs weighing far above the others, due to their much higher fan service value. Global premieres (some HSCs are included) are another order of magnitude above that, since Maru and sometimes Rogue/Dark don't participate in the major ones.
I personally have an issue with weighing World Championships (IEMs/Blizzcons) another order of magnitude above these other global premieres. I don't think players necessarily perform better in the former. If anything, many have shown evidence of the opposite. I personally weigh WCs only slightly above other global premieres.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
The 90 number is games. Match count is 35 from the OP.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
The 90 number is games. Match count is 35 from the OP.
My bad, 90 matches is counting both online and offline. Offline is 35 matches.
Regardless, in both cases, Serral's ZvP winrate against Korean Protoss is higher than Rogue's. Online, offline, online&offline, you name it. Serral's number in the same period is just better.
Note that in online matches, the only KR Protoss Serral will run into are the top dogs making deep runs in major/premiere international tournaments. Meanwhile Rogue sometimes plays weeklies and qualifiers against some no name KR protoss.
The only argument for Rogue is that he run into Protoss in the finals more often than Serral so he had more iconic championship ZvP series. But this is not a skill issue, just pure coincidence. It's not Serral's fault that most of his Protoss opponents either gets eliminated by him or the other finalist before final happens.
In the end, this is such trivial debate. Serral and Rogue is 1A and 1B as ZvP GOAT, depends on whether you value overall consistency or finals records. I will give one thing to Rogue tho, his ZvP are more interesting and entertaining than Serral's, he just have a deeper bag of tricks on how to torture Protoss in all ways possible, while Serral most of the time just overwhelm his opponent with stronger fundamentals.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Maru lost to meo, scarlett, and many other foreign players in BO3 series. We need more sample size of Maru playing non Koreans.
Rogue has the honor of being perhaps my most hated player ever--who I eventually learned to appreciate, perhaps even in a way to love. (After all, the closest thing to love is often hatred.) I'm a sucker for narratives, tryhards, underdogs, and Protoss: the things Rogue seemed to exist to crush into the dirt with utter callous merciless disregard. I will never forgive him for ending soO's dream, or Trap's dream, or Trap's dream again, or herO's dream, or...
And his play certainly matched that villain mindset. I don't think I've ever been more disgusted with the game of Starcraft, nay, the whole RTS genre, nay, videogaming itself, than in that one final (iirc against Trap) where he just shamelessly abused Nydus/Swarm Host and Infested Terrans over and over and over again like the true disgusting bastard bully he is. It can be tempting to think of Rogue as a kind of super-sOs, but while sOs seemed to just enjoy playing the game as weirdly and creatively and scrappily as possible whether he won or lost, Rogue's play seemed to embody some unholy fusion of boredom, stability, laziness, and calculated cruelty.
Lest this seem too harsh, let me just say that all the above is, from a slightly different point of view, high praise indeed. There have always been the bully zergs, the villain zergs, the Patchzergs, the Idras and Nerchios and rorOs and Snipers of this world. Yet none of them ever honed their craft or reached anywhere near Rogue's level either of skill or evil.
In the end, before he retired I admit I came to respect, even bear a sort of grudging affection for, Rogue's raw talent, his skill, his dedication to his own monstrously evil Way, his brilliance in carrying out that Way, even his laziness in refusing to ever do anything else or practice when he couldn't inflict maximum cruelty by so doing.
So I salute the bastard; I praise him. We will never see his like again.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Calm down champ. Zerg has been OP for nearly the entire duration of time from 2018 til now; the same amount of time Protoss has been underpowered. Tournament results clearly show this. Not hard to be the GOAT when you are only competing against 2 races during your period of dominance....
You're writing history red by those who come after all of us. Hell, by writings of you I could easily declare that Rogue was the [Insert lovehate word here], but...
Where is Dark?! #2? There is no Rogue, without Dark. There are no Serral without both of them, over all relevant patches. It simply isn't right. Now, You can only place Dark above Rogue and nobody can ever accept that.
You simply cannot ignore ultimate "The Foreigner Killer" from the picture since 2018 of "How to kill all Koreans and everyone else".
Dark at least tried to do that, put some resistance.. Imba or 'patchzerg' talks do not apply here. And if they do, they do with Rogue too, The Great One.
I'll RIOT for Dark! Serral's psyche was tutored by Dark.
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Calm down champ. Zerg has been OP for nearly the entire duration of time from 2018 til now; the same amount of time Protoss has been underpowered. Tournament results clearly show this. Not hard to be the GOAT when you are only competing against 2 races during your period of dominance....
We were comparing two zergs' careers, and you're talking about...balance...
On February 27 2024 10:41 Waxangel wrote: Personally I still think Rogue CLEARLY has the greatest career resume of all time.
But I pushed Serral ahead of him to #1 GOAT recently because his resume now comes close enough-ish with world championship #3, and the aura-of-terror factor that's persisted since second-half 2018 has just become historically ridiculous (based on how other pros speak about him, how he's perceived in the community, etc).
I'm looking at their results on their liquipedia pages, and I don't see it. I can understand why some may have his resume edging over Serral's, but..."CLEARLY"??
I can easily name Rogue's biggest wins: Two IEM WCs, and 1 Blizzcon WC, four code S, an IEM Shanghai, two GSL STs, and...what else am I missing that is significant?
Serral: Same big threes as Rogue; two Master's Coliseums; ESL masters wins over Clem, Trap (x2), Gumiho, and Stats; single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation; two GSL v TW; Teamliquid Starleague 9; too many 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place premieres to even count; and finally, I know many official writers here don't think much of the region-locked cups, but the shit ton (8 to be exact) of those wins where he went through many Code S-level EU players should at least amount to something?? Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral??? LOL
The clear pro-Kr bias of some people is actually insane.
Calm down champ. Zerg has been OP for nearly the entire duration of time from 2018 til now; the same amount of time Protoss has been underpowered. Tournament results clearly show this. Not hard to be the GOAT when you are only competing against 2 races during your period of dominance....
We were comparing two zergs' careers, and you're talking about...balance...
Yeah I must have imagined seeing Maru's (or any other Terran's) name across these 6 pages of discussion. And I was talking about IMBAlance...
I think he's easily going down as the best ZvP player of all time as well. It's not even really a question in my mind.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
On February 28 2024 06:45 Captain Peabody wrote: Rogue has the honor of being perhaps my most hated player ever--who I eventually learned to appreciate, perhaps even in a way to love. (After all, the closest thing to love is often hatred.) I'm a sucker for narratives, tryhards, underdogs, and Protoss: the things Rogue seemed to exist to crush into the dirt with utter callous merciless disregard. I will never forgive him for ending soO's dream, or Trap's dream, or Trap's dream again, or herO's dream, or...
And his play certainly matched that villain mindset. I don't think I've ever been more disgusted with the game of Starcraft, nay, the whole RTS genre, nay, videogaming itself, than in that one final (iirc against Trap) where he just shamelessly abused Nydus/Swarm Host and Infested Terrans over and over and over again like the true disgusting bastard bully he is. It can be tempting to think of Rogue as a kind of super-sOs, but while sOs seemed to just enjoy playing the game as weirdly and creatively and scrappily as possible whether he won or lost, Rogue's play seemed to embody some unholy fusion of boredom, stability, laziness, and calculated cruelty.
Lest this seem too harsh, let me just say that all the above is, from a slightly different point of view, high praise indeed. There have always been the bully zergs, the villain zergs, the Patchzergs, the Idras and Nerchios and rorOs and Snipers of this world. Yet none of them ever honed their craft or reached anywhere near Rogue's level either of skill or evil.
In the end, before he retired I admit I came to respect, even bear a sort of grudging affection for, Rogue's raw talent, his skill, his dedication to his own monstrously evil Way, his brilliance in carrying out that Way, even his laziness in refusing to ever do anything else or practice when he couldn't inflict maximum cruelty by so doing.
So I salute the bastard; I praise him. We will never see his like again.
Beautifully put, and as you say, taking nothing away from Rogue.
When, against my better judgement I aligned my sleep schedule to watch Trap playing Rogue in that final live, knowing my boy would probably lose, it didn’t stop that visceral feeling of anger as one of the greatest to not win a Starleague was denied via brutal swarm host nydus.
I imagine it’s how Maru fans felt as he was denied that G5L at the time by roaches, so many roaches. And as a neutral I was like ‘fuck sake I set my schedule to catch this hoping for a classic series!’
And so on and so forth.
Serral does his thing and like, outside the most myopic it’s sort of that ‘fuck fair play, guy’s just too good’, he certainly lacks that villainry that Rogue brought to the table!
On February 28 2024 06:45 Captain Peabody wrote: Rogue has the honor of being perhaps my most hated player ever--who I eventually learned to appreciate, perhaps even in a way to love. (After all, the closest thing to love is often hatred.) I'm a sucker for narratives, tryhards, underdogs, and Protoss: the things Rogue seemed to exist to crush into the dirt with utter callous merciless disregard. I will never forgive him for ending soO's dream, or Trap's dream, or Trap's dream again, or herO's dream, or...
And his play certainly matched that villain mindset. I don't think I've ever been more disgusted with the game of Starcraft, nay, the whole RTS genre, nay, videogaming itself, than in that one final (iirc against Trap) where he just shamelessly abused Nydus/Swarm Host and Infested Terrans over and over and over again like the true disgusting bastard bully he is. It can be tempting to think of Rogue as a kind of super-sOs, but while sOs seemed to just enjoy playing the game as weirdly and creatively and scrappily as possible whether he won or lost, Rogue's play seemed to embody some unholy fusion of boredom, stability, laziness, and calculated cruelty.
Lest this seem too harsh, let me just say that all the above is, from a slightly different point of view, high praise indeed. There have always been the bully zergs, the villain zergs, the Patchzergs, the Idras and Nerchios and rorOs and Snipers of this world. Yet none of them ever honed their craft or reached anywhere near Rogue's level either of skill or evil.
In the end, before he retired I admit I came to respect, even bear a sort of grudging affection for, Rogue's raw talent, his skill, his dedication to his own monstrously evil Way, his brilliance in carrying out that Way, even his laziness in refusing to ever do anything else or practice when he couldn't inflict maximum cruelty by so doing.
So I salute the bastard; I praise him. We will never see his like again.
So true, when you watch Rogue tearing people up in matches, you could see a bit of malice behind the play. And you look at his face, he looks so completely detached from it all as well. If anything it does seem like he may have a good poker face similar to Maru who show barely any emotions win or lose. I admit it was fun to dislike Rogue for how dominant and how callous his play can be, but like you I too grew to respect and even enjoy his dominance.
Poor Dark, I seriously doubt he's showing up on this list even though he does deserve at least a spot in the top 10. I really doubt he'll supplant Maru or Serral for the inevitable #2 and #1 spots.
On February 27 2024 12:09 JJH777 wrote: It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
The classic coping excuses ping, schedule, jet lag
Koreans are just not as good as you think they are. Then again, Maru already admits that Serral makes him look like a bronze player
Back to topic, I would have rogue higher than Maru, rogue accomplish were far more impressive than Maru. Maru only has his “weak GSLs victories”, literally had to wait for his KR peers to get older or leave for military
User was warned for this post
Also didn’t know Dark struggled that much in BO7 series
You're a terrible troll and a dummy.
"Koreans not as good etc" Yea ok, that's why 9 of the top 10 will be Korean.
And you would know about coping wouldn't you? Must have been hard watching sc2 until Serral came along. Serral is an outlier. If Korean's aren't that good, then the rest of the world is horrible.
That one who made the scene (as of 2024), The Last Hope of Korea, and The Zerg-Grandpa broodlord to all of his descendants. Sparring the champions since forever.
There is a dark place for Dark in our hearts always, no matter how the history is or will be written. Now and thereafter.
On February 27 2024 23:56 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
On February 27 2024 12:09 JJH777 wrote: It is interesting to wonder what else Rogue would have won if not for military. Many have pointed out that he seems like the exact type of player that would kill the fun Oliveira run. Seems very likely he would have won at least 1 more GSL as well and wouldn't have been surprised to see him pick up another random online or smaller weekend event.
Also just how few offline series Reynor/Serral have played vs Koreans always surprises me. I can't believe Serral has only played 35 matches vs Korean Protoss in 7 full years of being at the top of SC2. Even crazier that Reynor is only at 20 since he even went to Korea twice and only peaked 1 years later. Had to go double check both because of how surprised I was. Recently I've been thinking Serral's the goat but seeing just how little he had to play Koreans offline for his results reminds me why I'm still not sure he truly deserves that title. Non-Koreans were just given every possible advantage in most online events, including start time, ping, and groups I can't think of those as very valuable premiers.
The classic coping excuses ping, schedule, jet lag
Koreans are just not as good as you think they are. Then again, Maru already admits that Serral makes him look like a bronze player
Back to topic, I would have rogue higher than Maru, rogue accomplish were far more impressive than Maru. Maru only has his “weak GSLs victories”, literally had to wait for his KR peers to get older or leave for military
User was warned for this post
Also didn’t know Dark struggled that much in BO7 series
You're a terrible troll and a dummy.
"Koreans not as good etc" Yea ok, that's why 9 of the top 10 will be Korean.
And you would know about coping wouldn't you? Must have been hard watching sc2 until Serral came along. Serral is an outlier. If Korean's aren't that good, then the rest of the world is horrible.
You obviously have some hate towards Koreans.
Why you raging kiddo?
I’m just stating fact KR isn’t as good as Serral for years now
Sorry I’m not you who apparently hate the idea that Foreigners being better than KR. I enjoyed the low skilled WOL era but highly entertaining clown fiesta games
I’ll admit HOTS was when the entertainment were quite bad (dark age) with the swarm host, mass ravens, cancer widow mines.
I could care less who’s the best whether it’s KR or foreigner. As long as their games are entertaining me. If not, I just move on and watch/do something else that’s more entertaining.
FYI I always tune in for Has games. Cause I know it’s going to be highly entertaining good/bad
Just like I come to the forum to read funny coping/excuses comments from both side of the argument
For everyone hoping for Dark to be included in the top 10 (myself included), I thought it was already somewhat spoiled that he didn't make the list when we found out that MVP did. Can't remember what specific set of words that I read, but unless it was a reading comprehension issue, that was the impression that I got.
Agree or disagree, I love that this series has provoked some passionate discussions since I can't remember the last time these forums were so active lol. To me, the cardinal sins of this list were placing MVP above INno, and not including Dark at all (even if I misremembered what I read earlier, I can't imagine him being placed above Rogue and we all know who the top 2 spots will be unless it's some sort of gimmicky tie). At least, as Winter puts it, Dark is the best player in the world according to Dark and that's what really matters.
On February 28 2024 10:35 Kitai wrote: For everyone hoping for Dark to be included in the top 10 (myself included), I thought it was already somewhat spoiled that he didn't make the list when we found out that MVP did. Can't remember what specific set of words that I read, but unless it was a reading comprehension issue, that was the impression that I got.
Agree or disagree, I love that this series has provoked some passionate discussions since I can't remember the last time these forums were so active lol. To me, the cardinal sins of this list were placing MVP above INno, and not including Dark at all (even if I misremembered what I read earlier, I can't imagine him being placed above Rogue and we all know who the top 2 spots will be unless it's some sort of gimmicky tie). At least, as Winter puts it, Dark is the best player in the world according to Dark and that's what really matters.
Yeah Miz said something along those lines in the comments of it. He'll write a blog about it, but the list is set in stone.
On February 21 2024 06:15 TheDougler wrote: First of all Miz, excellent work. Your writing is so fun to read as always.
The quasi-confirmation that Dark didn't make the top 10 really surpised me though. Let's look at the comparison to Rain, specifically.
Notable tournament finishes (Rain): 2012 WCS Asia: 1st place 2012 OnGameNet Starleague: 1st place 2013 OnGameNet Starleague: 2nd place 2013 GSL Hot6ix Cup: 1st place 2015 IEM San Jose: 2nd place 2015 Code S Season 2: 1st place 2015 HomeStory Cup 11: 1st place
Notable Tournament Finishes (Dark): 2016 Code S Season 1: 1st Place 2016 WCS Korea: 1st Place 2016 WCS Global Championships: 2nd Place 2019 GSL Code S Season 2: 1st Place 2019 GSL AfreecaTV Super Tournament 2: 1st Place 2019 WCS Global Finals: 1st Place 2020 Teamliquid StarLeague 6: 1st Place 2021 GSL Season 2: 1st Place 2022 GSL Afreeka TV Super Tournament 1: 2nd Place 2023 GSL Code S Season 2: 2nd Place
There's plenty of other tournaments, including premier tournaments that Dark placed in the top 4 of that I haven't even mentioned above.
I simply cannot see a logic behind including Rain but not him. Heck, I'm not sure that TY even deserves his spot above Dark. Let's look at the justification of that:
The Placement
TY and #10 player Rain are similar for their consistent, high-level play in Korean Individual Leagues, and their list of top-four finishes is very similar (TY: 2x first place, 2x second place, 2x RO4 finishes // Rain: 2x first place, 1x second place, 3x RO4).
However, TY gets the nod for ninth place by surpassing Rain in a couple of key areas. The biggest differentiating factor was TY's results in world championship-tier tournaments—TY won both IEM and WESG, while Rain's best result was top 3 at BWC/WCS 2012. Also, TY's stretch of consistently great domestic play lasted for five years, compared to Rain's three and a half. Overall, TY was the obvious choice to slot in right ahead of Rain.
Okay, so let's look at top four finishes in Korean Individual Leagues, and world championship tournaments. Fortunately, Miz already did the math for us:
Korean Individual Leagues: TY: 2x first place, 2x second place, 2x RO4 Rain: 2x first place, 1x second place, 3x RO4 Dark: 2x first place, 3x second place, 4x RO4.
So, equal number of first places, but more consistent finals and semi-finals appearances for Dark. Let's look at world championship events:
TY: 1st Place IEM 2017, 1st Place WESG 2017 Rain: 3rd Place BWC/WCS 2012 Dark: 1st Place WCS 2019, 2nd Place WCS Global Championships 2016
Here we see that the logic that places TY above Rain unquestionably puts Dark above Rain as well. So, what gives?
Could it be that Dark's winrate against fellow S-tier competition is much poorer (which I don't have the statistics for, but feel like could certainly be the case)?
I don't think it's that either, as Miz notes Dark's impressive win-rate against TY:
From what I can read from the TY article, it's mostly this 3% lower overall win-rate in Korean Individual Leagues, despite having the more impressive record in terms of Top4+ appearences in those leagues when compared to TY:
TY's consistent strength is also apparent in his overall win-loss record in Korean Individual Leagues. From the start of LotV up until his military service, he was neck-and-neck with Maru in terms of having the best statistics. TY's map win-rate of 64.9% (170W-92L) was slightly head of Maru's 63.8% (166W-94L), while his series win-rate of 69.8% (60W-26L) was second only to Maru's 73.2% (60W-22). When it comes to Dark, Stats, and Rogue, the other top players during this time frame, their win-rates all trail slightly or considerably behind TY.
We should note however, that even by that math, the match win rate (which I'd argue is more important than map win rate) is even closer.
Heck, LOOK at that consistency from Dark, the only one on that chart to qualify for every listed event in that table!
To me, there's just something not-correct about puttin Rain above Dark for the top 10, given the criteria we know about. When we look at weekenders, this becomes even more apparent, but I won't belabor that point as they're weighted lightly by the criteria we know about.
Great post and we agree on the consistency. Dark is one of the most consistent players in history (which i will go into in length during the blog).
The rain thing is a pretty easy argument for me as he was a top 3 player in hots when it came to KIL. Ignore soO and ByuL for a moment since they are a combined 0-7 in KIL finals during hots. Rain and Inno were the only players to reach 3 KIL finals in hots and no one won more than Rain (two wins).
I understand a lot of people feel differently, but if all you do is count trophies then there's no reason for a list. You just do some 1+1 basic math and there you go. The Protoss Rain played in 2013 was the best we had seen up to that point (many people try to point out how trash everyone was and how they could go back and win gsl, but I think a player deserves great credit for playing at a never before seen level. Rain was also one match from being a double royal roader (though he would have had to play life in the final), but he was also one match away from making a second final opposite ByuL in 2015). It's funny how so much hinges on so few games. I didn't entertain hypotheticals in the article
Zest had a big part in overhauling Protoss in 2014 and it's fair to say he surpassed Rain as far as peak Protoss at that point. I personally prefer 2015 Rain to 2013 Rain as I think he was a far more well rounded player and I think he raised the level again.
In the end, you could argue Rain benefitted from retirement. Unlike soO, zest, inno, dark, classic, herO, rogue etc, Rain never had a long stretch of being sub par. He was a top tier from start to finish (barring a few months in 2014) and that's a very difficult thing to accomplish.
If Rain had generated those numbers in a career as long as Maru's, I wouldn';t think much of him at all. In fact, if your primary determiner of GOAT ness is trophies and final appearances, players like Cure and Solar should be ahead of a number of players who most people would consider much better than either of them, but didn't play for 11 years and didn't have as much time to build a nice trophy collection.
Edit: Here's what he said earlier that confirmed it (more or less):
On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote: Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral...
I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL. soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement
Along with Rain it’s probably the most debatable shout
It’s like SC2’s ultimate Kong versus, for my money probably the player who was a top, top consistent contender for the longest without winning a huge amount.
I don’t think any direction it goes is especially outrageous. Maru’s fourpeat is one of those achievements that overshadows what came before.
If memory serves, nobody had made more than 2 consecutive finals before soO, and he made 4. Maru doing what he’s done has made soO’s runs less bonkers in retrospect, but at the time they were insane.
Dark may cumulatively have slightly more top 8/4 finishes, and he made more hay in the latter stages of the scene. Equally soO had to go to military not all that long after finally casting off the Kong Kurse and missed that period where Dark and Rogue were hoovering up titles
It’s that close really I wouldn’t even expend the energy of a shoulder shrug if either made top 10 at the other’s expense.
I mean with Rain the comparison is more difficult because Rain won stuff, was a pioneer in how to play protoss his way, etc. As for soO, it’s difficult to see him there but not Dark, who was the best Zerg in the world in 2016 / 2019 and remained a top Zerg for long, while winning important tournaments.
This Dark thing is so disappointing. It's been weeks of the same argument to which I can't respond despite having way more information available to me atm than you guys. Oh well, have to wait for blog stuff and hope people would be up for a good faith discussion.
On February 28 2024 10:35 Kitai wrote: For everyone hoping for Dark to be included in the top 10 (myself included), I thought it was already somewhat spoiled that he didn't make the list when we found out that MVP did. Can't remember what specific set of words that I read, but unless it was a reading comprehension issue, that was the impression that I got.
Agree or disagree, I love that this series has provoked some passionate discussions since I can't remember the last time these forums were so active lol. To me, the cardinal sins of this list were placing MVP above INno, and not including Dark at all (even if I misremembered what I read earlier, I can't imagine him being placed above Rogue and we all know who the top 2 spots will be unless it's some sort of gimmicky tie). At least, as Winter puts it, Dark is the best player in the world according to Dark and that's what really matters.
Yeah Miz said something along those lines in the comments of it. He'll write a blog about it, but the list is set in stone.
On February 21 2024 06:15 TheDougler wrote: First of all Miz, excellent work. Your writing is so fun to read as always.
The quasi-confirmation that Dark didn't make the top 10 really surpised me though. Let's look at the comparison to Rain, specifically.
Notable tournament finishes (Rain): 2012 WCS Asia: 1st place 2012 OnGameNet Starleague: 1st place 2013 OnGameNet Starleague: 2nd place 2013 GSL Hot6ix Cup: 1st place 2015 IEM San Jose: 2nd place 2015 Code S Season 2: 1st place 2015 HomeStory Cup 11: 1st place
Notable Tournament Finishes (Dark): 2016 Code S Season 1: 1st Place 2016 WCS Korea: 1st Place 2016 WCS Global Championships: 2nd Place 2019 GSL Code S Season 2: 1st Place 2019 GSL AfreecaTV Super Tournament 2: 1st Place 2019 WCS Global Finals: 1st Place 2020 Teamliquid StarLeague 6: 1st Place 2021 GSL Season 2: 1st Place 2022 GSL Afreeka TV Super Tournament 1: 2nd Place 2023 GSL Code S Season 2: 2nd Place
There's plenty of other tournaments, including premier tournaments that Dark placed in the top 4 of that I haven't even mentioned above.
I simply cannot see a logic behind including Rain but not him. Heck, I'm not sure that TY even deserves his spot above Dark. Let's look at the justification of that:
The Placement
TY and #10 player Rain are similar for their consistent, high-level play in Korean Individual Leagues, and their list of top-four finishes is very similar (TY: 2x first place, 2x second place, 2x RO4 finishes // Rain: 2x first place, 1x second place, 3x RO4).
However, TY gets the nod for ninth place by surpassing Rain in a couple of key areas. The biggest differentiating factor was TY's results in world championship-tier tournaments—TY won both IEM and WESG, while Rain's best result was top 3 at BWC/WCS 2012. Also, TY's stretch of consistently great domestic play lasted for five years, compared to Rain's three and a half. Overall, TY was the obvious choice to slot in right ahead of Rain.
Okay, so let's look at top four finishes in Korean Individual Leagues, and world championship tournaments. Fortunately, Miz already did the math for us:
Korean Individual Leagues: TY: 2x first place, 2x second place, 2x RO4 Rain: 2x first place, 1x second place, 3x RO4 Dark: 2x first place, 3x second place, 4x RO4.
So, equal number of first places, but more consistent finals and semi-finals appearances for Dark. Let's look at world championship events:
TY: 1st Place IEM 2017, 1st Place WESG 2017 Rain: 3rd Place BWC/WCS 2012 Dark: 1st Place WCS 2019, 2nd Place WCS Global Championships 2016
Here we see that the logic that places TY above Rain unquestionably puts Dark above Rain as well. So, what gives?
Could it be that Dark's winrate against fellow S-tier competition is much poorer (which I don't have the statistics for, but feel like could certainly be the case)?
I don't think it's that either, as Miz notes Dark's impressive win-rate against TY:
From what I can read from the TY article, it's mostly this 3% lower overall win-rate in Korean Individual Leagues, despite having the more impressive record in terms of Top4+ appearences in those leagues when compared to TY:
TY's consistent strength is also apparent in his overall win-loss record in Korean Individual Leagues. From the start of LotV up until his military service, he was neck-and-neck with Maru in terms of having the best statistics. TY's map win-rate of 64.9% (170W-92L) was slightly head of Maru's 63.8% (166W-94L), while his series win-rate of 69.8% (60W-26L) was second only to Maru's 73.2% (60W-22). When it comes to Dark, Stats, and Rogue, the other top players during this time frame, their win-rates all trail slightly or considerably behind TY.
We should note however, that even by that math, the match win rate (which I'd argue is more important than map win rate) is even closer.
Heck, LOOK at that consistency from Dark, the only one on that chart to qualify for every listed event in that table!
To me, there's just something not-correct about puttin Rain above Dark for the top 10, given the criteria we know about. When we look at weekenders, this becomes even more apparent, but I won't belabor that point as they're weighted lightly by the criteria we know about.
Great post and we agree on the consistency. Dark is one of the most consistent players in history (which i will go into in length during the blog).
The rain thing is a pretty easy argument for me as he was a top 3 player in hots when it came to KIL. Ignore soO and ByuL for a moment since they are a combined 0-7 in KIL finals during hots. Rain and Inno were the only players to reach 3 KIL finals in hots and no one won more than Rain (two wins).
I understand a lot of people feel differently, but if all you do is count trophies then there's no reason for a list. You just do some 1+1 basic math and there you go. The Protoss Rain played in 2013 was the best we had seen up to that point (many people try to point out how trash everyone was and how they could go back and win gsl, but I think a player deserves great credit for playing at a never before seen level. Rain was also one match from being a double royal roader (though he would have had to play life in the final), but he was also one match away from making a second final opposite ByuL in 2015). It's funny how so much hinges on so few games. I didn't entertain hypotheticals in the article
Zest had a big part in overhauling Protoss in 2014 and it's fair to say he surpassed Rain as far as peak Protoss at that point. I personally prefer 2015 Rain to 2013 Rain as I think he was a far more well rounded player and I think he raised the level again.
In the end, you could argue Rain benefitted from retirement. Unlike soO, zest, inno, dark, classic, herO, rogue etc, Rain never had a long stretch of being sub par. He was a top tier from start to finish (barring a few months in 2014) and that's a very difficult thing to accomplish.
If Rain had generated those numbers in a career as long as Maru's, I wouldn';t think much of him at all. In fact, if your primary determiner of GOAT ness is trophies and final appearances, players like Cure and Solar should be ahead of a number of players who most people would consider much better than either of them, but didn't play for 11 years and didn't have as much time to build a nice trophy collection.
Edit: Here's what he said earlier that confirmed it (more or less):
On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote: Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral...
I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL. soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement
Along with Rain it’s probably the most debatable shout
It’s like SC2’s ultimate Kong versus, for my money probably the player who was a top, top consistent contender for the longest without winning a huge amount.
I don’t think any direction it goes is especially outrageous. Maru’s fourpeat is one of those achievements that overshadows what came before.
If memory serves, nobody had made more than 2 consecutive finals before soO, and he made 4. Maru doing what he’s done has made soO’s runs less bonkers in retrospect, but at the time they were insane.
Dark may cumulatively have slightly more top 8/4 finishes, and he made more hay in the latter stages of the scene. Equally soO had to go to military not all that long after finally casting off the Kong Kurse and missed that period where Dark and Rogue were hoovering up titles
It’s that close really I wouldn’t even expend the energy of a shoulder shrug if either made top 10 at the other’s expense.
I mean with Rain the comparison is more difficult because Rain won stuff, was a pioneer in how to play protoss his way, etc. As for soO, it’s difficult to see him there but not Dark, who was the best Zerg in the world in 2016 / 2019 and remained a top Zerg for long, while winning important tournaments.
This Dark thing is so disappointing. It's been weeks of the same argument to which I can't respond despite having way more information available to me atm than you guys. Oh well, have to wait for blog stuff and hope people would be up for a good faith discussion.
That's what I was thinking of! Thanks for finding it. Also thanks for putting in so much effort defending Dark's honor =P
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
How is it arbitrary to look at relative opponent strength but it’s not arbitrary to single out finals and Ro4s?
Anyway Serral’s record in finals alone vs my beloved but long-suffering Protoss is not too shabby.
2018 GSL VS the world Serral 4-3 Stats 2018 WCS Global Finals Serral 4-2 Stats 2020 Dreamhack Masters Summer Serral 4-2 Trap 2020 Dreamhack Masters Winter Serral 4-2 Stats 2021 Dreamhack Masters Last Chance Serral 3-4 Trap 2021 Dreamhack Masters Fall Serral 4-0 Trap 2024 Masters Colosseum Serral 5-1 herO
Not sure if I’ve even got every Premier final there, but it isn’t too shabby really, and considering Serral has made quite a few more finals than Rogue, even excluding WCS Europe entirely it’s not really his fault that Protoss players aren’t running the gauntlet to face him more regularly.
I think Rogue has many of those intangibles that define greatness, and is probably the most clutch player we’ve seen when he’s on it, but overall Serral’s ZvP is stronger on almost every metric going.
I mean Rogue’s ZvP is also elite, and at times more sexy than Serral’s sure, so it’s nothing against him. He’s competing against IMO the best single matchup anyone has ever had in this game.
Rogue, is the best player I have encountered. Just love everything about him, his villianism (some like to gaslight about him while some may appreciates his art of playing in unorthodox ways), his mannerism personality, his madness, his poker face, his final BO7 records, his complete stomp of herO, Maru, Serral, Classic, Zest, Stats and Trap in final BO7 matches ended up incurring wrath from his opponents' fans and also everyone riding on casters' bias.
I am completely immersed in Sc2 story lines after he thrashed herO in final of IEM Shanghai, followed him and supported him all the ways till he retired (maybe for good?) last two years. Therefore, I didn't actively participate the forum discussions since then because I felt completely devastated after knowing he couldn't play anymore. No person ever can be like him. He is my ultimate bias. Thank you for all the memories he gave me during 2017-2022.
Farewell.
Note: I know Mizenhaur will definitely put Serral above him in this ranking which I disagrees the most, so as much as I love this piece in comparison with Mizenhaur's old post about him (please refer: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/530039-the-emperor-has-no-clothes-rogues-future-legacy), I will disdain myself from commenting further. Let Serral fans enjoy whatever they may have to write after the no.1 name would be announced in the next few days onward.
On February 28 2024 13:59 swarminfestor wrote: Rogue, is the best player I have encountered. Just love everything about him, his villianism (some like to gaslight about him while some may appreciates his art of playing in unorthodox ways), his mannerism personality, his madness, his poker face, his final BO7 records, his complete stomp of herO, Maru, Serral, Classic, Zest, Stats and Trap in final BO7 matches ended up incurring wrath from his opponents' fans and also everyone riding on casters' bias.
I am completely immersed in Sc2 story lines after he thrashed herO in final of IEM Shanghai, followed him and supported him all the ways till he retired (maybe for good?) last two years. Therefore, I didn't actively participate the forum discussions since then because I felt completely devastated after knowing he couldn't play anymore. No person ever can be like him. He is my ultimate bias. Thank you for all the memories he gave me during 2017-2022.
Farewell.
Note: I know Mizenhaur will definitely put Serral above him in this ranking which I disagrees the most, so as much as I love this piece in comparison with Mizenhaur's old post about him (please refer: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/530039-the-emperor-has-no-clothes-rogues-future-legacy), I will disdain myself from commenting further. Let Serral fans enjoy whatever they may have to write after the no.1 name would be announced in the next few days onward.
I feel really uncomfortable reading this. My abdomen hurts from the uncontrollable erratic muscle contractions. I "disdain myself" for having read this.
Edit: "Rogue & Maru fan boy. ^^" << Ah, shit...I could've saved myself the pain by reading the signature first.
On February 28 2024 13:59 swarminfestor wrote: Rogue, is the best player I have encountered. Just love everything about him, his villianism (some like to gaslight about him while some may appreciates his art of playing in unorthodox ways), his mannerism personality, his madness, his poker face, his final BO7 records, his complete stomp of herO, Maru, Serral, Classic, Zest, Stats and Trap in final BO7 matches ended up incurring wrath from his opponents' fans and also everyone riding on casters' bias.
I am completely immersed in Sc2 story lines after he thrashed herO in final of IEM Shanghai, followed him and supported him all the ways till he retired (maybe for good?) last two years. Therefore, I didn't actively participate the forum discussions since then because I felt completely devastated after knowing he couldn't play anymore. No person ever can be like him. He is my ultimate bias. Thank you for all the memories he gave me during 2017-2022.
Farewell.
Note: I know Mizenhaur will definitely put Serral above him in this ranking which I disagrees the most, so as much as I love this piece in comparison with Mizenhaur's old post about him (please refer: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/530039-the-emperor-has-no-clothes-rogues-future-legacy), I will disdain myself from commenting further. Let Serral fans enjoy whatever they may have to write after the no.1 name would be announced in the next few days onward.
I feel really uncomfortable reading this. My abdomen hurts from the uncontrollable erratic muscle contractions. I "disdain myself" for having read this.
Edit: "Rogue & Maru fan boy. ^^" << Ah, shit...I could've saved myself the pain by reading the signature first.
A closeted Serral fan coming to disrespect other post praising the player in the article written in dedication about him while coming to the forum as newbie, what else can I say about you.
On February 28 2024 13:59 swarminfestor wrote: Rogue, is the best player I have encountered. Just love everything about him, his villianism (some like to gaslight about him while some may appreciates his art of playing in unorthodox ways), his mannerism personality, his madness, his poker face, his final BO7 records, his complete stomp of herO, Maru, Serral, Classic, Zest, Stats and Trap in final BO7 matches ended up incurring wrath from his opponents' fans and also everyone riding on casters' bias.
I am completely immersed in Sc2 story lines after he thrashed herO in final of IEM Shanghai, followed him and supported him all the ways till he retired (maybe for good?) last two years. Therefore, I didn't actively participate the forum discussions since then because I felt completely devastated after knowing he couldn't play anymore. No person ever can be like him. He is my ultimate bias. Thank you for all the memories he gave me during 2017-2022.
Farewell.
Note: I know Mizenhaur will definitely put Serral above him in this ranking which I disagrees the most, so as much as I love this piece in comparison with Mizenhaur's old post about him (please refer: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/530039-the-emperor-has-no-clothes-rogues-future-legacy), I will disdain myself from commenting further. Let Serral fans enjoy whatever they may have to write after the no.1 name would be announced in the next few days onward.
I feel really uncomfortable reading this. My abdomen hurts from the uncontrollable erratic muscle contractions. I "disdain myself" for having read this.
Edit: "Rogue & Maru fan boy. ^^" << Ah, shit...I could've saved myself the pain by reading the signature first.
A closeted Serral fan coming to disrespect other post praising the player in the article written in dedication about him while coming to the forum as newbie, what else can I say about you.
Please don't disdain yourself from saying more about me and my villainism.
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Wow...I don't even know what to say to you...other than that you're completely missing the point.
No one is saying that it's any one tourney that matters. Are you lost? If you think single-handedly taking a nation to win against everyone, including S Korea, and winning 7 or 8 HSCs, out of 10, were an easy feat, you are most definitely lost. Do you not understand the concept of statistical outliers? Yeah, even players like marinelord, Scarlett, and Oliveira can have a really good day. Are you going to try and put down those championship tournaments those other two won as well because they were statistical outliers? By the way, around that time, marinelord was no slouch, either.
OK, I get your point. Statistics matters, even though some of the results are less important than the others. A championship is a championship, after all. So small tournaments like Nation Wars and Homestory Cups are important, too.
Then, I'm pretty sure, the absolute GOAT must be... Dark! Look at this long list of tournaments that he won!
[...]
He won against Serral 4:0 in the final of TeamLiquid StarLeague 6, earning $6000, while Serrals winning against Clem in Homestory Cup only earned him $3500. Over all, Dark has 128 championships, while Serral only has 106! Poor Rogue only has 70, I absolutely agree that he has no chance to be the GOAT. What a Patchzerg, indeed! He was not even trying! I think I just unveiled the last two GOATs, second place: Serral and 1st place: Dark! Thank you for enlightening me, it all makes sense now.
No one is saying that GOAT is determined solely by # of tournaments won.
Perceivere listed many of Serral's smaller achievements, because he was correcting Poopi who said that "Serral won a few EU tournaments / Homestory cups that don't matter much as far as resume go".
He wasn't saying he even exactly believes each of those results are 100% as important as X other thing.
He stated his belief "No one said Taeja would be a GOAT candidate based on three HSC wins. lol It is all the accolades combined." It's fair to think that the complete resume of any player should be considered.
And then he opened up a question expressing his opinion that racking up a lot of results, even if smaller, maybe should still amount to something, perhaps a single GSL win. That's a fair opinion to have, we all weigh things differently. "Do these writers really think that eight tournaments where he had to go through players like Elazer, Heromarine, Showtime, Neeb, Clem, and Reynor really don't even amount to a single GSL win, where players don't even have to contend with Clem, Reynor, and Serral???"
On February 27 2024 15:21 Perceivere wrote: single-handedly carried Finland to #1 in 2019 Nation Wars; homestory cups over Reynor, Clem (x2), TY, Solar, and Innovation;
Nation Wars? Homestory cups? Seriously? Marinelord AKed Korean team one time. I guess he should be the GOAT, because he's above all korean players. Oh, BTW, he also AKed Finland team in the same tournament. He carried team France to championship. So he's definitely the GOAT, no?
C'mon, adding these just weakens your point.
Wow...I don't even know what to say to you...other than that you're completely missing the point.
No one is saying that it's any one tourney that matters. Are you lost? If you think single-handedly taking a nation to win against everyone, including S Korea, and winning 7 or 8 HSCs, out of 10, were an easy feat, you are most definitely lost. Do you not understand the concept of statistical outliers? Yeah, even players like marinelord, Scarlett, and Oliveira can have a really good day. Are you going to try and put down those championship tournaments those other two won as well because they were statistical outliers? By the way, around that time, marinelord was no slouch, either.
LOL maybe it was a troll account after all?
C'mon man, u gotta at least try to meet your opponents halfway on the forums—this ain't a StarCraft II match.
Say something like "Multi-kills in lower-stakes team tournaments aren't necessarily prestigious on their own, but they can reflect the ability of a player at a certain point in time. Just as INnoVation reminded us of his prowess by carrying AX-Acer to a GSTL championship, Serral did the same for Finland six years later in Nation Wars."
With all respect, I can't tell if Jy or Perceivere is the one being criticized here. Jy is heavily misconstruing Perceivere's original point, and to me is the one putting less effort to try to engage in a conversation. Even if Perceivere's posts are charged (understandably so), Jy's are as well. It's pretty hard to find a middle to meet someone at when they're just derailing the point completely into a different direction.
On February 28 2024 12:14 WombaT wrote: I think Rogue has many of those intangibles that define greatness, and is probably the most clutch player we’ve seen when he’s on it, but overall Serral’s ZvP is stronger on almost every metric going.
I mean Rogue’s ZvP is also elite, and at times more sexy than Serral’s sure, so it’s nothing against him. He’s competing against IMO the best single matchup anyone has ever had in this game.
I don't even know how to describe it, but I just love watching Rogue destroy his opponents, strategically and mentally. I have no idea how he remains so composed when he's stuffing his Ravager counterattack all-in through a Protoss wall with shield batteries, immortals, oracles, while he has 0 drones alive. Serral feels like he's mechanically superior and usually wins through just "making less mistakes", but Rogue just has those "soul reads" and "soul wins" that make me really feel the "strategy" in competitive games, and proves that Starcraft isn't just about who is faster and has higher APM. For example his 4-0 vs Maru with just mass Ravagers. I don't know enough to understand how or why it's working. But you can tell it's crushing Maru's soul haha.
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote: [quote] Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
In my head, Serral is just slightly above Rogue. But then I'm reminded that Rogue had to go to the military, when it seemed like Rogue was maybe only hitting new peaks. It's really too sad Rogue couldn't have stuck around for 1-2 more years, probably the end of the modern KR SC2 scene, to see how he and Serral stack up. Maru seems to have plateau'd for the most part, based on Rogue usually coming out on top over Maru, and Serral over Maru too. Perhaps Rogue could have stopped Serral and been the #1 GOAT. (As a Rogue fan I think there's a chance, though realistically I don't think Rogue would have gotten as high of a winrate or consistency as Serral).
On February 28 2024 10:35 Kitai wrote: For everyone hoping for Dark to be included in the top 10 (myself included), I thought it was already somewhat spoiled that he didn't make the list when we found out that MVP did. Can't remember what specific set of words that I read, but unless it was a reading comprehension issue, that was the impression that I got.
Agree or disagree, I love that this series has provoked some passionate discussions since I can't remember the last time these forums were so active lol. To me, the cardinal sins of this list were placing MVP above INno, and not including Dark at all (even if I misremembered what I read earlier, I can't imagine him being placed above Rogue and we all know who the top 2 spots will be unless it's some sort of gimmicky tie). At least, as Winter puts it, Dark is the best player in the world according to Dark and that's what really matters.
Yeah Miz said something along those lines in the comments of it. He'll write a blog about it, but the list is set in stone.
Here's what he said:
On February 21 2024 08:36 Mizenhauer wrote:
On February 21 2024 06:15 TheDougler wrote: First of all Miz, excellent work. Your writing is so fun to read as always.
The quasi-confirmation that Dark didn't make the top 10 really surpised me though. Let's look at the comparison to Rain, specifically.
Notable tournament finishes (Rain): 2012 WCS Asia: 1st place 2012 OnGameNet Starleague: 1st place 2013 OnGameNet Starleague: 2nd place 2013 GSL Hot6ix Cup: 1st place 2015 IEM San Jose: 2nd place 2015 Code S Season 2: 1st place 2015 HomeStory Cup 11: 1st place
Notable Tournament Finishes (Dark): 2016 Code S Season 1: 1st Place 2016 WCS Korea: 1st Place 2016 WCS Global Championships: 2nd Place 2019 GSL Code S Season 2: 1st Place 2019 GSL AfreecaTV Super Tournament 2: 1st Place 2019 WCS Global Finals: 1st Place 2020 Teamliquid StarLeague 6: 1st Place 2021 GSL Season 2: 1st Place 2022 GSL Afreeka TV Super Tournament 1: 2nd Place 2023 GSL Code S Season 2: 2nd Place
There's plenty of other tournaments, including premier tournaments that Dark placed in the top 4 of that I haven't even mentioned above.
I simply cannot see a logic behind including Rain but not him. Heck, I'm not sure that TY even deserves his spot above Dark. Let's look at the justification of that:
The Placement
TY and #10 player Rain are similar for their consistent, high-level play in Korean Individual Leagues, and their list of top-four finishes is very similar (TY: 2x first place, 2x second place, 2x RO4 finishes // Rain: 2x first place, 1x second place, 3x RO4).
However, TY gets the nod for ninth place by surpassing Rain in a couple of key areas. The biggest differentiating factor was TY's results in world championship-tier tournaments—TY won both IEM and WESG, while Rain's best result was top 3 at BWC/WCS 2012. Also, TY's stretch of consistently great domestic play lasted for five years, compared to Rain's three and a half. Overall, TY was the obvious choice to slot in right ahead of Rain.
Okay, so let's look at top four finishes in Korean Individual Leagues, and world championship tournaments. Fortunately, Miz already did the math for us:
Korean Individual Leagues: TY: 2x first place, 2x second place, 2x RO4 Rain: 2x first place, 1x second place, 3x RO4 Dark: 2x first place, 3x second place, 4x RO4.
So, equal number of first places, but more consistent finals and semi-finals appearances for Dark. Let's look at world championship events:
TY: 1st Place IEM 2017, 1st Place WESG 2017 Rain: 3rd Place BWC/WCS 2012 Dark: 1st Place WCS 2019, 2nd Place WCS Global Championships 2016
Here we see that the logic that places TY above Rain unquestionably puts Dark above Rain as well. So, what gives?
Could it be that Dark's winrate against fellow S-tier competition is much poorer (which I don't have the statistics for, but feel like could certainly be the case)?
I don't think it's that either, as Miz notes Dark's impressive win-rate against TY:
From what I can read from the TY article, it's mostly this 3% lower overall win-rate in Korean Individual Leagues, despite having the more impressive record in terms of Top4+ appearences in those leagues when compared to TY:
TY's consistent strength is also apparent in his overall win-loss record in Korean Individual Leagues. From the start of LotV up until his military service, he was neck-and-neck with Maru in terms of having the best statistics. TY's map win-rate of 64.9% (170W-92L) was slightly head of Maru's 63.8% (166W-94L), while his series win-rate of 69.8% (60W-26L) was second only to Maru's 73.2% (60W-22). When it comes to Dark, Stats, and Rogue, the other top players during this time frame, their win-rates all trail slightly or considerably behind TY.
We should note however, that even by that math, the match win rate (which I'd argue is more important than map win rate) is even closer.
Heck, LOOK at that consistency from Dark, the only one on that chart to qualify for every listed event in that table!
To me, there's just something not-correct about puttin Rain above Dark for the top 10, given the criteria we know about. When we look at weekenders, this becomes even more apparent, but I won't belabor that point as they're weighted lightly by the criteria we know about.
Great post and we agree on the consistency. Dark is one of the most consistent players in history (which i will go into in length during the blog).
The rain thing is a pretty easy argument for me as he was a top 3 player in hots when it came to KIL. Ignore soO and ByuL for a moment since they are a combined 0-7 in KIL finals during hots. Rain and Inno were the only players to reach 3 KIL finals in hots and no one won more than Rain (two wins).
I understand a lot of people feel differently, but if all you do is count trophies then there's no reason for a list. You just do some 1+1 basic math and there you go. The Protoss Rain played in 2013 was the best we had seen up to that point (many people try to point out how trash everyone was and how they could go back and win gsl, but I think a player deserves great credit for playing at a never before seen level. Rain was also one match from being a double royal roader (though he would have had to play life in the final), but he was also one match away from making a second final opposite ByuL in 2015). It's funny how so much hinges on so few games. I didn't entertain hypotheticals in the article
Zest had a big part in overhauling Protoss in 2014 and it's fair to say he surpassed Rain as far as peak Protoss at that point. I personally prefer 2015 Rain to 2013 Rain as I think he was a far more well rounded player and I think he raised the level again.
In the end, you could argue Rain benefitted from retirement. Unlike soO, zest, inno, dark, classic, herO, rogue etc, Rain never had a long stretch of being sub par. He was a top tier from start to finish (barring a few months in 2014) and that's a very difficult thing to accomplish.
If Rain had generated those numbers in a career as long as Maru's, I wouldn';t think much of him at all. In fact, if your primary determiner of GOAT ness is trophies and final appearances, players like Cure and Solar should be ahead of a number of players who most people would consider much better than either of them, but didn't play for 11 years and didn't have as much time to build a nice trophy collection.
Edit: Here's what he said earlier that confirmed it (more or less):
On February 21 2024 02:15 Mizenhauer wrote:
On February 21 2024 01:16 Poopi wrote:
On February 21 2024 01:01 WombaT wrote:
On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:
On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote: Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral...
I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL. soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement
Along with Rain it’s probably the most debatable shout
It’s like SC2’s ultimate Kong versus, for my money probably the player who was a top, top consistent contender for the longest without winning a huge amount.
I don’t think any direction it goes is especially outrageous. Maru’s fourpeat is one of those achievements that overshadows what came before.
If memory serves, nobody had made more than 2 consecutive finals before soO, and he made 4. Maru doing what he’s done has made soO’s runs less bonkers in retrospect, but at the time they were insane.
Dark may cumulatively have slightly more top 8/4 finishes, and he made more hay in the latter stages of the scene. Equally soO had to go to military not all that long after finally casting off the Kong Kurse and missed that period where Dark and Rogue were hoovering up titles
It’s that close really I wouldn’t even expend the energy of a shoulder shrug if either made top 10 at the other’s expense.
I mean with Rain the comparison is more difficult because Rain won stuff, was a pioneer in how to play protoss his way, etc. As for soO, it’s difficult to see him there but not Dark, who was the best Zerg in the world in 2016 / 2019 and remained a top Zerg for long, while winning important tournaments.
This Dark thing is so disappointing. It's been weeks of the same argument to which I can't respond despite having way more information available to me atm than you guys. Oh well, have to wait for blog stuff and hope people would be up for a good faith discussion.
That's what I was thinking of! Thanks for finding it. Also thanks for putting in so much effort defending Dark's honor =P
Haha, I'm not even a huge Dark fan. I just find extremely creative ways to procrastinate some days and that was one of those days.
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote: [quote] Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
This is just WombaT’s LawTM, decreed at the very dawn of time itself:
’In a tournament most premier, no Protoss can hope to triumph if two Zergs must they slay’.
I do legitimately think it held true for a good long stretch, perhaps years from when I coined it. I may actually go check it out properly! Trap ended up breaking it at one of those Dreamhack events when he took out Reynor and Serral.
On February 28 2024 00:32 WombaT wrote: [quote] I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
In my head, Serral is just slightly above Rogue. But then I'm reminded that Rogue had to go to the military, when it seemed like Rogue was maybe only hitting new peaks. It's really too sad Rogue couldn't have stuck around for 1-2 more years, probably the end of the modern KR SC2 scene, to see how he and Serral stack up. Maru seems to have plateau'd for the most part, based on Rogue usually coming out on top over Maru, and Serral over Maru too. Perhaps Rogue could have stopped Serral and been the #1 GOAT. (As a Rogue fan I think there's a chance, though realistically I don't think Rogue would have gotten as high of a winrate or consistency as Serral).
Indeed, plus there was that fun clash of approaches where Rogue would delve deep into the depths of his considerable cunning and find ways to win. And not just win but absolutely stomp people and break many a fanboy’s heart (Trap noooooooo).
Not that he’s lacking in skill himself, but it would have been a nice contrast to Maru’s ‘I’m just more skilled than everyone and I’ll outplay them’ kind of vibe, which is kind of how Serral rolls except it perhaps leaves some cold because he doesn’t have those high/low moments or much vulnerability, it’s just relentless.
Thank god we still have a Gumiho, a Byun and a Dark floating around, these days it feels top players of their respective races all play rather similarly, just to differing levels. Protoss is a bit more varied but we just don’t have top players :p
Tis a Rogue/Climax appreciation after all and I do wanna pay credit to the evil bastard great man rather than talk too much about other players.
One of history’s greatest monsters really. Life schedule generally meant I had to hold off, resist my usual urge to refresh TL every 16 seconds and catch GSLs via VoDs.
The two notable recent exceptions?
‘Well it’s my boy Trap in a GSL final, I gotta catch that one live.’ ‘Wow it’s Maru going for G5L, it’s Maru versus Rogue, this could be a historic moment, will somebody finally get their hands on the trophy made for Mvp all those years ago? And if not well, we may have a series for the ages ahead of us’.
For. Fuck’s. Sake.
I feel the only thing Rogue was missing was actually being a total bastard in all things, just to really seal the villain deal. Alas he’s a damn likeable fellow!
On February 28 2024 00:37 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
In my head, Serral is just slightly above Rogue. But then I'm reminded that Rogue had to go to the military, when it seemed like Rogue was maybe only hitting new peaks. It's really too sad Rogue couldn't have stuck around for 1-2 more years, probably the end of the modern KR SC2 scene, to see how he and Serral stack up. Maru seems to have plateau'd for the most part, based on Rogue usually coming out on top over Maru, and Serral over Maru too. Perhaps Rogue could have stopped Serral and been the #1 GOAT. (As a Rogue fan I think there's a chance, though realistically I don't think Rogue would have gotten as high of a winrate or consistency as Serral).
Indeed, plus there was that fun clash of approaches where Rogue would delve deep into the depths of his considerable cunning and find ways to win. And not just win but absolutely stomp people and break many a fanboy’s heart (Trap noooooooo).
Not that he’s lacking in skill himself, but it would have been a nice contrast to Maru’s ‘I’m just more skilled than everyone and I’ll outplay them’ kind of vibe, which is kind of how Serral rolls except it perhaps leaves some cold because he doesn’t have those high/low moments or much vulnerability, it’s just relentless.
Thank god we still have a Gumiho, a Byun and a Dark floating around, these days it feels top players of their respective races all play rather similarly, just to differing levels. Protoss is a bit more varied but we just don’t have top players :p
Tis a Rogue/Climax appreciation after all and I do wanna pay credit to the evil bastard great man rather than talk too much about other players.
One of history’s greatest monsters really. Life schedule generally meant I had to hold off, resist my usual urge to refresh TL every 16 seconds and catch GSLs via VoDs.
The two notable recent exceptions?
‘Well it’s my boy Trap in a GSL final, I gotta catch that one live.’ ‘Wow it’s Maru going for G5L, it’s Maru versus Rogue, this could be a historic moment, will somebody finally get their hands on the trophy made for Mvp all those years ago? And if not well, we may have a series for the ages ahead of us’.
For. Fuck’s. Sake.
I feel the only thing Rogue was missing was actually being a total bastard in all things, just to really seal the villain deal. Alas he’s a damn likeable fellow!
Damn you're making me sad reminding me that we didn't get Maru and Rogue fighting for G5L with both of them having 4 GSL wins. But at least 1 of them (Maru) had 4 so it was still absolutely painful and hilarious how Rogue destroyed his soul epic. And we had Maru vs the other GOAT Serral in a grand finals of a WC tier event finally (Katowice).
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote: [quote] Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
There are probably a few cases where it was the other way around so I don't think that counts for anything other then Rogue probably watching the games and then be better prepared.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
In my head, Serral is just slightly above Rogue. But then I'm reminded that Rogue had to go to the military, when it seemed like Rogue was maybe only hitting new peaks. It's really too sad Rogue couldn't have stuck around for 1-2 more years, probably the end of the modern KR SC2 scene, to see how he and Serral stack up. Maru seems to have plateau'd for the most part, based on Rogue usually coming out on top over Maru, and Serral over Maru too. Perhaps Rogue could have stopped Serral and been the #1 GOAT. (As a Rogue fan I think there's a chance, though realistically I don't think Rogue would have gotten as high of a winrate or consistency as Serral).
Indeed, plus there was that fun clash of approaches where Rogue would delve deep into the depths of his considerable cunning and find ways to win. And not just win but absolutely stomp people and break many a fanboy’s heart (Trap noooooooo).
Not that he’s lacking in skill himself, but it would have been a nice contrast to Maru’s ‘I’m just more skilled than everyone and I’ll outplay them’ kind of vibe, which is kind of how Serral rolls except it perhaps leaves some cold because he doesn’t have those high/low moments or much vulnerability, it’s just relentless.
Thank god we still have a Gumiho, a Byun and a Dark floating around, these days it feels top players of their respective races all play rather similarly, just to differing levels. Protoss is a bit more varied but we just don’t have top players :p
Tis a Rogue/Climax appreciation after all and I do wanna pay credit to the evil bastard great man rather than talk too much about other players.
One of history’s greatest monsters really. Life schedule generally meant I had to hold off, resist my usual urge to refresh TL every 16 seconds and catch GSLs via VoDs.
The two notable recent exceptions?
‘Well it’s my boy Trap in a GSL final, I gotta catch that one live.’ ‘Wow it’s Maru going for G5L, it’s Maru versus Rogue, this could be a historic moment, will somebody finally get their hands on the trophy made for Mvp all those years ago? And if not well, we may have a series for the ages ahead of us’.
For. Fuck’s. Sake.
I feel the only thing Rogue was missing was actually being a total bastard in all things, just to really seal the villain deal. Alas he’s a damn likeable fellow!
Damn you're making me sad reminding me that we didn't get Maru and Rogue fighting for G5L with both of them having 4 GSL wins. But at least 1 of them (Maru) had 4 so it was still dramatic. And we had Maru vs the other GOAT Serral in a grand finals of a WC tier event finally (Katowice).
I was actually going to mention that in my post but neglected to. As much as people complain about Rogue being the hype killer, in the two most hyped final showdowns in this recent epoch (IMO) Maru just got completely stomped.
On February 28 2024 04:31 Crocolisk Dundee wrote: I want to share some great Proleague games of Rogue's, back from I watched every single match in 2015-2016.
Thanks for the recap, those were amazing Rogue games and helps put into perspective is greatness. I laughed when I heard a wolf say "Zerg have a hard time against Protoss, no idea how Rogue can do that...:" I do not think we will hear those words again in SC2.
Btw, for the curious this is the proleague theme song:
On February 28 2024 00:32 WombaT wrote: [quote] I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
There are probably a few cases where it was the other way around so I don't think that counts for anything other then Rogue probably watching the games and then be better prepared.
On February 28 2024 00:37 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
There are probably a few cases where it was the other way around so I don't think that counts for anything other then Rogue probably watching the games and then be better prepared.
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote: [quote] Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
Yeah, because one is for people saying Serral's 90 match sample size isn't enough compared to Rogue's 400 when comparing them as the greatest players ever.
Meanwhile the comment about Hurricane is just giving an example of how he isn't a throwaway player. No one is putting Hurricane on a GOAT list
Serral has a better record, against better players, has by a distance the all time peak ZvP on Aligulac, the best win rate in the matchup overall, the best win rate in the matchup versus purely Korean players.
Sure Rogue can match up very well in a GOAT shootout by virtue of many clutch performances and his trophy cabinet.
In a best ZvP shootout he really just can’t, along basically any metric you go off.
Well this I don't quite understand.
Rogue has an argument for being the GOAT, and almost all of his wins come from one matchup, yet you think he doesn't have an argument for being the best in that matchup?
Even if we're just talking stats, Serral isn't actually that far ahead...
ZvP record offline (against Korean) from 2017-2024 Serral: 72-35 (67%), 27-8 (77%) Rogue: 147-76 (66%), 52-21 (71%)
Rogue sports nearly as good a win% as Serral while playing over TWICE as much. Is that not more impressive? You can get arbitrary and say Serral played a slightly tougher on average opponent (he still has guys like Hurricane and Zoun in there mind), but then Rogue had to prepare for twice as many matches and still hit such a winrate.
Now, if you're looking past the flat statistics like that anyway, then there's others that go in favour of Rogue.
ZvP finals. Serral is 2-0, Rogue is 7-0. Surely you weight finals as more important than any other match? Extend that to ro4+finals, Serral is 6-3 (67%). Rogue is 8-2 (80%).
And I'll throw in some history changing ZvP matches mentioned in the Rogue highlight thread.
Classic won SSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season Rain won GSL S2 2015, was eliminated by Rogue next season herO won SSL S3 2015, lost game 7 in the Proleague playoffs to Rogue the following week Zest won GSL S1 2016 and lost not one but two Proleague ace matches to Rogue right before and right after
He was ruining the best protoss players dreams while they were in their primes, years before he was even a championship contender.
Also noteworthy imo that in 2 of Rogues world championship runs he stomped the player that beat Serral.
Surely that has to count for something too, I think Rogue definitely has a case for best ZvP if we put extra value on the most important matches. If we consider online/unimportant matches just as highly then it's Serral but I disagree with that approach
You can find whatever random statistic if you filter deep enough, and it's basically this whole thread, nitpicking to the extreme.
Those winrate filters for ZvP make it so Serral is only playing the very best Korean Protosses while they're doing well (aka they qualified for big tournaments), Rogue is playing a lot more lower level rated protosses, so no its not even close to the same.
On February 28 2024 06:45 Captain Peabody wrote: Rogue has the honor of being perhaps my most hated player ever--who I eventually learned to appreciate, perhaps even in a way to love. (After all, the closest thing to love is often hatred.) I'm a sucker for narratives, tryhards, underdogs, and Protoss: the things Rogue seemed to exist to crush into the dirt with utter callous merciless disregard. I will never forgive him for ending soO's dream, or Trap's dream, or Trap's dream again, or herO's dream, or...
And his play certainly matched that villain mindset. I don't think I've ever been more disgusted with the game of Starcraft, nay, the whole RTS genre, nay, videogaming itself, than in that one final (iirc against Trap) where he just shamelessly abused Nydus/Swarm Host and Infested Terrans over and over and over again like the true disgusting bastard bully he is. It can be tempting to think of Rogue as a kind of super-sOs, but while sOs seemed to just enjoy playing the game as weirdly and creatively and scrappily as possible whether he won or lost, Rogue's play seemed to embody some unholy fusion of boredom, stability, laziness, and calculated cruelty.
Lest this seem too harsh, let me just say that all the above is, from a slightly different point of view, high praise indeed. There have always been the bully zergs, the villain zergs, the Patchzergs, the Idras and Nerchios and rorOs and Snipers of this world. Yet none of them ever honed their craft or reached anywhere near Rogue's level either of skill or evil.
In the end, before he retired I admit I came to respect, even bear a sort of grudging affection for, Rogue's raw talent, his skill, his dedication to his own monstrously evil Way, his brilliance in carrying out that Way, even his laziness in refusing to ever do anything else or practice when he couldn't inflict maximum cruelty by so doing.
So I salute the bastard; I praise him. We will never see his like again.
This and his trophy cabinet is why he's probably the real GOAT in my book.
On February 28 2024 13:59 swarminfestor wrote: Rogue, is the best player I have encountered. Just love everything about him, his villianism (some like to gaslight about him while some may appreciates his art of playing in unorthodox ways), his mannerism personality, his madness, his poker face, his final BO7 records, his complete stomp of herO, Maru, Serral, Classic, Zest, Stats and Trap in final BO7 matches ended up incurring wrath from his opponents' fans and also everyone riding on casters' bias.
I am completely immersed in Sc2 story lines after he thrashed herO in final of IEM Shanghai, followed him and supported him all the ways till he retired (maybe for good?) last two years. Therefore, I didn't actively participate the forum discussions since then because I felt completely devastated after knowing he couldn't play anymore. No person ever can be like him. He is my ultimate bias. Thank you for all the memories he gave me during 2017-2022.
Farewell.
Note: I know Mizenhaur will definitely put Serral above him in this ranking which I disagrees the most, so as much as I love this piece in comparison with Mizenhaur's old post about him (please refer: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/530039-the-emperor-has-no-clothes-rogues-future-legacy), I will disdain myself from commenting further. Let Serral fans enjoy whatever they may have to write after the no.1 name would be announced in the next few days onward.
You are aware I wrote all of these extremely complimentary articles about Rogue...right?
Here's a brief excerpt from article number four to wet your whistle
"Halfway through 2022, it’s safe to say that Rogue has created a legacy that stands out on its own. He has done so on the back of championship after championship, beating every kind of challenger in high pressure situations. Where others wax and wane with time, Rogue is immutable. Where others go years without winning a title, Rogue is inevitable. Where others win and lose finals in equal measure, Rogue hasn't even had to play a game seven. The simple fact is that there will never be another like him. And, while you can call him a legend, the GOAT, the king of Best of 7s or any other moniker under the sun, none of them adequately describe what he has become. For Rogue is the greatest champion StarCraft II has ever known. And he will never be anything less."
Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
I like the rest of your post but this is actually a huge mistatement. Rogue actually had *remarkably* bad ZvP. I checked this on Aligulac a year back or so, but he actually has a losing win rate (sub 50) against the top tosses from like 2019 onwards or something like that (Zest, Trap, Stats, e.g.)
But he knew how to win in big tournaments and everyone remembers him just absolutely crushing tosses in finals, which created a myth he was generally great at ZvP. No. He was great at finals.
It's Serral who has the best ZvP of all time.
I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so, Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guy seems really nice.
On February 29 2024 05:07 ejozl wrote: Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
On February 27 2024 23:56 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so we Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guys seems really nice.
Yeah, but when your greatest achievement is stealing from your fellow pros by accelerating the death of proleague and committing the equivalent of a federal crime (gambling is illegal in Korea), you're not lacking in virtue, you're just a piece of shit and the sc2 community would have been better off if he never played.
On February 29 2024 05:07 ejozl wrote: Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
On February 27 2024 23:56 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] I thought so too but in the stats Miz posted Rogues ZvP map winrate offline vs koreans is only 1.3% lower than Serrals
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so, Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guy seems really nice.
Stephano has no aura, I don't know what you are talking about. He was the best foreigner at the time but at no point was him considered clear cut best player or best Zerg in the world. He could hang around with top Korean players, that's the about the highest praised you could say about a foreigner at the time.
You also don't seem to understand the amount of damage Life caused for Korean SC2 pro scene. What he did was probably not that terrible on paper from outsider perspective(fixing a couple maps in inconsequential matches), but the outcome of it tipped the scale and eventually caused or at least greatly accelerate the collapse of SC2 pro scene in Korea. There's a reason why everyone in Korea hates Life with a passion.
If you make a list of "the most gifted players in SC2 history", then Life could probably gets a nod. But you won't find him on any serious GOAT list.
On February 29 2024 05:07 ejozl wrote: Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
On February 28 2024 08:30 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 04:08 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:48 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:01 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:32 WombaT wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:03 Pandain wrote: [quote]
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 01:03 Balnazza wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so we Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guys seems really nice.
Yeah, but when your greatest achievement is stealing from your fellow pros by accelerating the death of proleague and committing the equivalent of a federal crime (gambling is illegal in Korea), you're not lacking in virtue, you're just a piece of shit and the sc2 community would have been better off if he never played.
Small additions: 1)For those who think "Life didn't do any damage!" the reminder that the Court itself explained that they rate the damage he caused the scene higher than his status as a minor. A freakin' Court in in Esports-Mekka South Korea said "bro, you fucked up". 2)Not sure how Kespa handles these kind of things, but another reminder that Life is not holding a World Championship Title anymore. Blizzard revoked his win. Which tbh makes me wonder if MMA actually should be considered a World Champion? I know athletes usually don't flaunt medals/wins they got like this, but just for statistic sakes it is an interesting question.
For #1,#2#,#3, they're all on the edges of a goaty triangle, each missing something : for Rogue the consistency, for Maru the world championships, for Serral the Code S title (although perhaps for Rogue and Maru it's been a 'they couldn't' whereas for Serral it was 'he wouldn't').
I will forever remember that Rogue vs Trap finals. I was on the beach in a sunny location and much to my girlfriend's dismay took the iPad and started watching 'as we might get a series'. Even as a fellow Protoss, Rogue's drubbing was so clinical and at times sadistic that, glued to the screen, I couldn't help but think : what a chad.
We know that whoever won latest Katowice wouldn’t change who is #1. That means it’s either Serral #1 because Maru has no WC (other than WESG which is not really WC) and even winning one Katowice isn’t enough.
Or it’s Maru #1 because of the absurd amount of star leagues + HotS success, including proleague, meaning Serral winning another WC wouldn’t be enough?
I lean towards Serral #1, but otoh having Rogue at #3 behind Maru might mean that WCs ain’t that important in this list and the absurd number of Maru’s KIL + proleague record is enough for him to be #1
On February 29 2024 05:07 ejozl wrote: Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
On February 28 2024 08:30 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 04:08 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:48 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:01 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:32 WombaT wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:03 Pandain wrote: [quote]
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 01:03 Balnazza wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so we Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guys seems really nice.
Yeah, but when your greatest achievement is stealing from your fellow pros by accelerating the death of proleague and committing the equivalent of a federal crime (gambling is illegal in Korea), you're not lacking in virtue, you're just a piece of shit and the sc2 community would have been better off if he never played.
Give the guy a break! Life was just completing his l'enfant terrible image by actually committing crime
Afaik this is my first post and I have been following TL since SC2 came out but I just wanted to make a post in regards to Life.
I don't think that anyone who believes that he deserves to be in the conversation for greatest player ever is saying he didn't cause a lot of damage to the game. What people are saying is that he was a minor and to try to have a little empathy. Given the nature of how much money there is in gambling, it would not surprise me that he was approached with a huge amount of money. Put yourself in his shoes: you're a minor, you are doing something incredibly hard in competing at the highest level of sc2 and probably not being paid by your team an amount commensurate to the difficulty of your achievements. Someone is offering you more money than you've ever seen just to drop a game, not even the whole set. A lot of people at that age would not be mature enough to make the right decision.
Not saying that it is the same thing but a large amount of US professional sports players end their careers with very little money. They were never taught to plan financially or to make decisions when it comes to large sums of money and these are people in their 20s. I think that there was a conversation at the time that the court wanted to make an example out of Life.
Like many, I read the elephants in the room article and was shocked, a little angry, and a little scared because maybe it was true? I came into the game with Wings so I never followed BW. Was it true that there existed an entire legion of pros who could at any point switch over and completely invalidate the achievements of MVP, Nestea, MC and others? This was at the height of SC2's popularity and I wanted to believe that what I was watching was the best that SC2 could be played at the moment, I didn't want the article to be true. But Artosis, Hotbid and others believed that Flash and Jaedong were just built different, that they were orders of magnitude better than MVP, that given a couple months to flesh out the game, they would completely dominate everyone.
So when the Kespa pros finally switched over and MLG Dallas happened, and Flash defeated Parting and Innovation to make grand finals. And Life stood in his way, having defeated MC, who had himself previously eliminated MVP - I needed Life to win. It felt like fate, as if MC and MVP fell because they knew that Life could defend the integrity of all of the Starcraft that had been played before. It was one of those series where you felt that something bigger was being decided here. And I cheered so much with every ling runbys and I must have lost it when those banelings rolled into Flash's worker lines on Cloud Kingdom. Life taking the win on that day felt symbolic. The energy of it felt similar to me as when Serral became the first foreigner to win a Starcraft world championship. Incontrol described on State of the Game watching Serral holding up that trophy and turning around and seeing Mike Morhaime, silent tears running down his face.
It's probably true that if he was considered under a very stats based methodology, he wouldn't make top 10 because his career was cut short by his actions. He might have needed more time like some in the currently written top 10. What he did have was that brilliance, genius, virtuosity. Every time that his handful of lings ran pass a lowered depot, it seemed that he understood the game on a level that other pros didn't yet. He seemed to have that ability to win.
I agree with others that any goat list is subjective and if your methodology rules Life out, that's fine. But I don't think it's ridiculous at all for him to be in the conversation, with the asterisk of all damage that his actions caused. It feels that anyone who brings up Life is treated as a troll or someone who doesn't understand what happened, but as a spectator with great love for the game, Life was that guy for awhile.
On February 29 2024 07:43 Poopi wrote: We know that whoever won latest Katowice wouldn’t change who is #1. That means it’s either Serral #1 because Maru has no WC (other than WESG which is not really WC) and even winning one Katowice isn’t enough.
Or it’s Maru #1 because of the absurd amount of star leagues + HotS success, including proleague, meaning Serral winning another WC wouldn’t be enough?
I lean towards Serral #1, but otoh having Rogue at #3 behind Maru might mean that WCs ain’t that important in this list and the absurd number of Maru’s KIL + proleague record is enough for him to be #1
Exciting either way
I do feel Miz has high praise for Maru and seems to rate him higher in HotS than others do (he often cites his Proleague, his winrate, performance in GSL, etc.). As well as the criteria saying that WC tier events are only weighed slightly more than GSL/Starleague. Maru did win an OSL over Rain (#10 on this list), and a SSL over Dream. And then, he has 4 GSL wins in 2018-2019, before GSL started declining much. If you count these, it's 6 Starleague wins, vs Serral's 3 WC tier wins and other stuff (dunno which if any would qualify as something close to a Starleague by the criteria). Then you add Proleague which he sees as what KR players focused on in HotS, and HotS was the most competitive era with Kespa and all.
That and that 2nd place isn't as much worse than 1st place as other people weigh it. So, these are all potential reasons that could give Maru the edge over Serral.
I feel there's a 50% chance Maru gets #1 on this list. I think I would even lean towards betting on that than Serral - saying that the results of Katowice wouldn't affect it, I think makes me think that Maru is #1 on this list and any other WC win Serral gained wouldn't be enough because it's in a weaker era.
It would also line up with those weekenders not being weighed much, and Rain a Starleague/Proleague player being over Taeja for example.
@Pact Enjoyed that post! Yeah Flash vs Life was an epic face off. I forgot MC beat MVP in that same tournament. So many GOATS were being surpassed symbolically. (Career wise, MC did outlast MVP and he even won the Gamers8 Legends haha.)
I didn't realize he was a minor at the time, and that he was only dropping games not matches. I do agree that it's much less worse if he felt, ok i will just drop this and that game, but still win the match, so the competitive integrity is still there and the result won't be changed. I do believe in forgiveness and redemption, especially for young people or people who don't have a bad record. (These things, like how well his friends and family perceived him in normal life, are all accounted for in court when deciding the punishment.)
I don't think he didn't make it cus of his career being cut short though (Rain and MVP made it, a la "Class is permanent, form is temporary"). I think the main reason is that Life didn't perform that well in Starleagues/Proleague, and was mainly a foreign weekender event player. I think that's the same reason there's a good chance Serral won't be #1.
For me though, I would put Life right above MVP on my list, and Taeja following close behind them.
On February 29 2024 07:43 Poopi wrote: We know that whoever won latest Katowice wouldn’t change who is #1. That means it’s either Serral #1 because Maru has no WC (other than WESG which is not really WC) and even winning one Katowice isn’t enough.
Or it’s Maru #1 because of the absurd amount of star leagues + HotS success, including proleague, meaning Serral winning another WC wouldn’t be enough?
I lean towards Serral #1, but otoh having Rogue at #3 behind Maru might mean that WCs ain’t that important in this list and the absurd number of Maru’s KIL + proleague record is enough for him to be #1
Exciting either way
I do feel Miz has high praise for Maru and seems to rate him higher in HotS than others do (he often cites his Proleague, his winrate, performance in GSL, etc.). As well as the criteria saying that WC tier events are only weighed slightly more than GSL/Starleague. Maru did win an OSL over Rain (#10 on this list), and a SSL over Dream. And then, he has 4 GSL wins in 2018-2019, before GSL started declining much. If you count these, it's 6 Starleague wins, vs Serral's 3 WC tier wins and other stuff (dunno which if any would qualify as something close to a Starleague by the criteria). Then you add Proleague which he sees as what KR players focused on in HotS, and HotS was the most competitive era with Kespa and all.
That and that 2nd place isn't as much worse than 1st place as other people weigh it. So, these are all potential reasons that could give Maru the edge over Serral.
I feel there's a 50% chance Maru gets #1 on this list. I think I would even lean towards betting on that than Serral - saying that the results of Katowice wouldn't affect it, I think makes me think that Maru is #1 on this list and any other WC win Serral gained wouldn't be enough because it's in a weaker era.
It would also line up with those weekenders not being weighed much, and Rain a Starleague/Proleague player being over Taeja for example.
@Pact Enjoyed that post! Yeah Flash vs Life was an epic face off. I forgot MC beat MVP in that same tournament. So many GOATS were being surpassed symbolically. (Career wise, MC did outlast MVP and he even won the Gamers8 Legends haha.)
I didn't realize he was a minor at the time, and that he was only dropping games not matches. I do agree that it's much less worse if he felt, ok i will just drop this and that game, but still win the match, so the competitive integrity is still there and the result won't be changed. I do believe in forgiveness and redemption, especially for young people or people who don't have a bad record. (These things, like how well his friends and family perceived him in normal life, are all accounted for in court when deciding the punishment.)
I don't think he didn't make it cus of his career being cut short though (Rain and MVP made it, a la "Class is permanent, form is temporary"). I think the main reason is that Life didn't perform that well in Starleagues/Proleague, and was mainly a foreign weekender event player. I think that's the same reason there's a good chance Serral won't be #1.
For me though, I would put Life right above MVP on my list, and Taeja following close behind them.
I didn't catch it, but if Miz did at some point said the ranking won't be affected by recent Katowice, then it's highly likely it's Maru #1, for all the reason you mentioned. Miz seems to highly value those Kespa years, judging by the inclusion of Rain over Dark.
It wouldn't make sense for him to say that while having Serral #1. One Katowice for Maru should be a huge swing in his favor since it's literally the only thing missing from his trophy cabinet.
On February 29 2024 08:55 Pact wrote: Afaik this is my first post and I have been following TL since SC2 came out but I just wanted to make a post in regards to Life.
I don't think that anyone who believes that he deserves to be in the conversation for greatest player ever is saying he didn't cause a lot of damage to the game. What people are saying is that he was a minor and to try to have a little empathy. Given the nature of how much money there is in gambling, it would not surprise me that he was approached with a huge amount of money. Put yourself in his shoes: you're a minor, you are doing something incredibly hard in competing at the highest level of sc2 and probably not being paid by your team an amount commensurate to the difficulty of your achievements. Someone is offering you more money than you've ever seen just to drop a game, not even the whole set. A lot of people at that age would not be mature enough to make the right decision.
Not saying that it is the same thing but a large amount of US professional sports players end their careers with very little money. They were never taught to plan financially or to make decisions when it comes to large sums of money and these are people in their 20s. I think that there was a conversation at the time that the court wanted to make an example out of Life.
Like many, I read the elephants in the room article and was shocked, a little angry, and a little scared because maybe it was true? I came into the game with Wings so I never followed BW. Was it true that there existed an entire legion of pros who could at any point switch over and completely invalidate the achievements of MVP, Nestea, MC and others? This was at the height of SC2's popularity and I wanted to believe that what I was watching was the best that SC2 could be played at the moment, I didn't want the article to be true. But Artosis, Hotbid and others believed that Flash and Jaedong were just built different, that they were orders of magnitude better than MVP, that given a couple months to flesh out the game, they would completely dominate everyone.
So when the Kespa pros finally switched over and MLG Dallas happened, and Flash defeated Parting and Innovation to make grand finals. And Life stood in his way, having defeated MC, who had himself previously eliminated MVP - I needed Life to win. It felt like fate, as if MC and MVP fell because they knew that Life could defend the integrity of all of the Starcraft that had been played before. It was one of those series where you felt that something bigger was being decided here. And I cheered so much with every ling runbys and I must have lost it when those banelings rolled into Flash's worker lines on Cloud Kingdom. Life taking the win on that day felt symbolic. The energy of it felt similar to me as when Serral became the first foreigner to win a Starcraft world championship. Incontrol described on State of the Game watching Serral holding up that trophy and turning around and seeing Mike Morhaime, silent tears running down his face.
It's probably true that if he was considered under a very stats based methodology, he wouldn't make top 10 because his career was cut short by his actions. He might have needed more time like some in the currently written top 10. What he did have was that brilliance, genius, virtuosity. Every time that his handful of lings ran pass a lowered depot, it seemed that he understood the game on a level that other pros didn't yet. He seemed to have that ability to win.
I agree with others that any goat list is subjective and if your methodology rules Life out, that's fine. But I don't think it's ridiculous at all for him to be in the conversation, with the asterisk of all damage that his actions caused. It feels that anyone who brings up Life is treated as a troll or someone who doesn't understand what happened, but as a spectator with great love for the game, Life was that guy for awhile.
A fine first post indeed. Very well articulated, especially the feeling that the Elephant in the room brought to those like myself who’d only ever really watched pro StarCraft via the sequel. It wasn’t just about our favourite players maybe dropping off, but the idea we’d spent a couple of years getting super invested in something only to discover it was potentially a pale imitation. I’d never quite put my finger on it until you wrote that post!
It’s a tricky one, I’m torn in many different directions re Life. I guess I defer up to individuals what they want to do and what they feel on the topic. I’m absolutely fine with people still getting joy from his play and what he brought to the game, equally so people who would rather not discuss someone who did a huge amount of damage to the scene.
There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Even if you're correct and players now are better (which I don't think is clear, guys like Maru/Dark are still top 2/top 5 in the world and are likely worse than their HotS selves, Dark directly stated that he considers himself worse) that isn't the only factor. The number one factor for how hard it is to compete in something is how many other people are competing in it. It's harder to be the best when there are several hundred other people trying to do the same thing than when there are only 30 others even if the skill level at the top is a bit higher.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Even if you're correct and players now are better (which I don't think is clear, guys like Maru/Dark are still top 2/top 5 in the world and are likely worse than their HotS selves, Dark directly stated that he considers himself worse) that isn't the only factor. The number one factor for how hard it is to compete in something is how many other people are competing in it. It's harder to be the best when there are several hundred other people trying to do the same thing than when there are only 30 others even if the skill level at the top is a bit higher.
There's a caveat to your point. The people who quit also happen to be the people who stopped having much or any success, except for maybe Rain. That means that even if those players were still around, their level of threat to players like Serral or Maru would be very little. It would just mean that instead facing Heromarine, or Classic, or Gumiho in the Ro8, Serral/Maru/Clem/Reynor/Dark might be facing MVP, Rain, or Taeja. And then in the semi and grand finals, it would still be players of the current stock. They might pull a Scarlett/Oliveira, though. Who knows...
Idk about Dark. Maybe he meant that he's weaker compared to his early LotV conditions? Or, weaker relative to his competition? Who knows. Regardless, you can just look at the average APMs at the top to see how much has changed. Look at the insane amount of creep spread by the top zergs (and this is while current tumors have longer cooldowns and creep spreads a bit slower, and hellions/adepts snipe creep faster). Army compositions are more complex.
On February 29 2024 09:26 Nasigil wrote: It wouldn't make sense for him to say that while having Serral #1. One Katowice for Maru should be a huge swing in his favor since it's literally the only thing missing from his trophy cabinet.
Yep exactly this, I was forgetting about this but I feel certain that Maru is going to be #1 now. If Maru was #2, then a WC tier win would definitely call into question whether Serral should be #1.
Miz IIRC considers Maru above Taeja in HotS, meaning Maru was a top top HotS player, the most competitive era. And Maru also being a top LotV player, around Rogue's success and still close to Serral, would automatically make him the GOAT. (Other top HotS players like Life, Taeja, sOs, MC, Innovation, clearly fell off, and Inno is rated even below MVP).
Serral and Rogue both are players who made their careers in LotV, while Maru was strong since HotS. IIRC Miz cited that despite players like Rain not winning a ton of Starleagues, the highest anyone won during HotS was 2. And that was a reason Rain's 1 GSL and 1 OSL win are valued as a lot, cus that relatively was the highest feat you could pull off in terms of Starleague performance. Hence why racking up tons of results like Dark over a long period isn't more.
On February 29 2024 09:26 Nasigil wrote: It wouldn't make sense for him to say that while having Serral #1. One Katowice for Maru should be a huge swing in his favor since it's literally the only thing missing from his trophy cabinet.
Yep exactly this, I was forgetting about this but I feel certain that Maru is going to be #1 now. If Maru was #2, then a WC tier win would definitely call into question whether Serral should be #1.
Miz IIRC considers Maru above Taeja in HotS, meaning Maru was a top top HotS player, the most competitive era. And Maru also being a top LotV player, around Rogue's success and still close to Serral, would automatically make him the GOAT. (Other top HotS players like Life, Taeja, sOs, MC, Innovation, clearly fell off, and Inno is rated even below MVP).
Serral and Rogue both are players who made their careers in LotV, while Maru was strong since HotS. IIRC Miz cited that despite players like Rain not winning a ton of Starleagues, the highest anyone won during HotS was 2. And that was a reason Rain's 1 GSL and 1 OSL win are valued as a lot, cus that relatively was the highest feat you could pull off in terms of Starleague performance. Hence why racking up tons of results like Dark over a long period isn't more.
In my eyes, Serral has the greatest peak out of any SC2 players (for a respectable 6 years too, that's longer than some player's whole career on this list), while Maru has a slightly lower peak but probably better overall career achievement, thanks to those extra few very elite HotS years. It really comes down to what you values the most in a GOAT ranking.
But considering Serral just won Katowice over Maru in dominant fashion, it's gonna be quite a scene if he really place Maru at #1 at this point of time. Together with the Dark omission, imagine the controversy it's gonna stir. Not gonna be pretty.
On February 29 2024 09:26 Nasigil wrote: It wouldn't make sense for him to say that while having Serral #1. One Katowice for Maru should be a huge swing in his favor since it's literally the only thing missing from his trophy cabinet.
Yep exactly this, I was forgetting about this but I feel certain that Maru is going to be #1 now. If Maru was #2, then a WC tier win would definitely call into question whether Serral should be #1.
Miz IIRC considers Maru above Taeja in HotS, meaning Maru was a top top HotS player, the most competitive era. And Maru also being a top LotV player, around Rogue's success and still close to Serral, would automatically make him the GOAT. (Other top HotS players like Life, Taeja, sOs, MC, Innovation, clearly fell off, and Inno is rated even below MVP).
Serral and Rogue both are players who made their careers in LotV, while Maru was strong since HotS. IIRC Miz cited that despite players like Rain not winning a ton of Starleagues, the highest anyone won during HotS was 2. And that was a reason Rain's 1 GSL and 1 OSL win are valued as a lot, cus that relatively was the highest feat you could pull off in terms of Starleague performance. Hence why racking up tons of results like Dark over a long period isn't more.
In my eyes, Serral has the greatest peak out of any SC2 players (for a respectable 6 years too, that's longer than some player's whole career on this list), while Maru has a slightly lower peak but probably better overall career achievement, thanks to those extra few very elite HotS years. It really comes down to what you values the most in a GOAT ranking.
But considering Serral just won Katowice over Maru in dominant fashion, it's gonna be quite a scene if he really place Maru at #1 at this point of time. Together with the Dark omission, imagine the controversy it's gonna stir. Not gonna be pretty.
Fanboys gonna fanboy I guess. I like the passion the topic brings but some people are ludicrously aggressive and myopic on it. Especially given the work put intently this series it can be a bit disappointing.
As you said they’ve both got pretty damn good, slightly different claims and a lot comes down to what people value. I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if either claim the crown, neither is remotely outrageous.
I agree with Miz who said this before Kato anyway, either way Katowice wasn’t going to change my opinion, I doubt it changed many other’s.
I could have seen it sway people perhaps on the Rogue versus Serral matchup, given outside of Starleagues the main thing Rogue had over him previously was his extra World Championship.
I’d personally value consistency and borderline dominating for long stretches of time super highly, so one can guess which way I may sway, although I won’t officially reveal my vote :p
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
Jesus. Did he get all of that from practicing, or a car accident? It could be a combination of poor stress maintenance and overtraining. My body also tenses up when I'm focusing hard, but I'm not hammering out games 10 hrs a day, and I'm sure he takes the level of tensity to another order of magnitude. I'm not an expert, but he really should've used some of his prize money to consult a professional, or just ease up on the training. Maybe do yoga/meditation to train his body to relax, in the heat of performance. Sounds insane that someone would allow themself to get to that point.
Just recently, there was a Japanese boxer who died from a boxing bout. Everyone was donning him with praise and respect for his warrior spirit, but I think he should've been wiser about his approach to boxing. This whole selling your own health for glory is simply irresponsible.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
Indeed, hey we all get some details wrong in trying to recollect over a decade of glorious StarCraft. I’ve made quite a few errors myself on the times I haven’t refreshed my memory via Liquipedia.
Nout wrong with making some mistakes, or just genuinely being misinformed but my god some people decide to double down on being wrong and it’s infuriating, don’t blame you for being somewhat caustic.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
Jesus. Did he get all of that from practicing, or a car accident? It could be a combination of poor stress maintenance and overtraining. My body also tenses up when I'm focusing hard, but I'm not hammering out games 10 hrs a day, and I'm sure he takes the level of tensity to another order of magnitude. I'm not an expert, but he really should've used some of his prize money to consult a professional, or just ease up on the training. Maybe do yoga/meditation to train his body to relax, in the heat of performance. Sounds insane that someone would allow themself to get to that point.
Just recently, there was a Japanese boxer who died from a boxing bout. Everyone was donning him with praise and respect for his warrior spirit, but I think he should've been wiser about his approach to boxing. This whole selling your own health for glory is simply irresponsible.
Agreed with the bolded, but perhaps he did some of the kind of things you’re suggesting? It’s almost all speculation as to what his practice regime was at his peak, and what he did to mitigate it, or not as the case may be.
Some folks just don’t have bodies that are resilient as others, doesn’t matter what they do to try and limit the damage they do to themselves. Know plenty of folks whose bodies just can’t stand up to the rigours of their work, but they don’t have the luxury to take the requisite time off to actually heal properly and the issue just gets worse with that passage of time.
Considering it’s pretty likely that at least all teamhouse pros played a similar amount back in the day, given the environment they were in, and SC2 has only really seen two particularly notable cases of players debilitated by injury to the degree they left high level competition prematurely, I’d say it’s just as likely that an Mvp or a Taeja were just unlucky with their bodies than had particularly bad habits.
Indeed if memory serves (and I may be corrected) I believe Taeja was kind of noted by peers etc to practice relatively little
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
Jesus. Did he get all of that from practicing, or a car accident? It could be a combination of poor stress maintenance and overtraining. My body also tenses up when I'm focusing hard, but I'm not hammering out games 10 hrs a day, and I'm sure he takes the level of tensity to another order of magnitude. I'm not an expert, but he really should've used some of his prize money to consult a professional, or just ease up on the training. Maybe do yoga/meditation to train his body to relax, in the heat of performance. Sounds insane that someone would allow themself to get to that point.
Just recently, there was a Japanese boxer who died from a boxing bout. Everyone was donning him with praise and respect for his warrior spirit, but I think he should've been wiser about his approach to boxing. This whole selling your own health for glory is simply irresponsible.
Agreed with the bolded, but perhaps he did some of the kind of things you’re suggesting? It’s almost all speculation as to what his practice regime was at his peak, and what he did to mitigate it, or not as the case may be.
Some folks just don’t have bodies that are resilient as others, doesn’t matter what they do to try and limit the damage they do to themselves. Know plenty of folks whose bodies just can’t stand up to the rigours of their work, but they don’t have the luxury to take the requisite time off to actually heal properly and the issue just gets worse with that passage of time.
Considering it’s pretty likely that at least all teamhouse pros played a similar amount back in the day, given the environment they were in, and SC2 has only really seen two particularly notable cases of players debilitated by injury to the degree they left high level competition prematurely, I’d say it’s just as likely that an Mvp or a Taeja were just unlucky with their bodies than had particularly bad habits.
Indeed if memory serves (and I may be corrected) I believe Taeja was kind of noted by peers etc to practice relatively little
The same thought occurred to me. I'm still very skeptical about the so-called advantages of teamhouse practice. Perhaps he wouldn't have had the same success if he went independent like Byun, but I do think that he should've at least given it a try? What's there to lose? At least you can continue your career. Perhaps he felt some of the nervous damage was irreversible, judging by the severity of it. It's really a shame.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
Jesus. Did he get all of that from practicing, or a car accident? It could be a combination of poor stress maintenance and overtraining. My body also tenses up when I'm focusing hard, but I'm not hammering out games 10 hrs a day, and I'm sure he takes the level of tensity to another order of magnitude. I'm not an expert, but he really should've used some of his prize money to consult a professional, or just ease up on the training. Maybe do yoga/meditation to train his body to relax, in the heat of performance. Sounds insane that someone would allow themself to get to that point.
Just recently, there was a Japanese boxer who died from a boxing bout. Everyone was donning him with praise and respect for his warrior spirit, but I think he should've been wiser about his approach to boxing. This whole selling your own health for glory is simply irresponsible.
I don't think we ever got a confirmed cause but people knowledgeable about the injury said it was probably bad posture (like leaning too far forward, forcing the neck to move back/up). Sitting in a bad way like that for 70 hours a week on average wouldn't be very good for you.
I know we're a lot more aware of good ergonomics these days but I do think it's surprising that we haven't seen similar cases. Mvp's posture didn't seem to be notably worse than any other pro's, at least outwardly. Really think it must have been a genuine freak injury.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
Jesus. Did he get all of that from practicing, or a car accident? It could be a combination of poor stress maintenance and overtraining. My body also tenses up when I'm focusing hard, but I'm not hammering out games 10 hrs a day, and I'm sure he takes the level of tensity to another order of magnitude. I'm not an expert, but he really should've used some of his prize money to consult a professional, or just ease up on the training. Maybe do yoga/meditation to train his body to relax, in the heat of performance. Sounds insane that someone would allow themself to get to that point.
Just recently, there was a Japanese boxer who died from a boxing bout. Everyone was donning him with praise and respect for his warrior spirit, but I think he should've been wiser about his approach to boxing. This whole selling your own health for glory is simply irresponsible.
SC2 has only really seen two particularly notable cases of players debilitated by injury to the degree they left high level competition prematurely, I’d say it’s just as likely that an Mvp or a Taeja were just unlucky with their bodies than had particularly bad habits.
BoxeR also retired due to a shoulder injury, while still quite a good Terran too (I believe he may have retired while still technically in Code S? Can't remember if he was formally knocked down to Code A, I think he may have forfeited the up and down matches?). He had a solid ten years of extra RTS playtime on his peers, much of which was before good PC ergonomics were understood, plus he was older than almost every player in the scene, so it wasn't seen as a big shock.
Speculation was his wife forced the retirement, but I saw nothing credible backing that up. Either way, injury-based retirement is quite rare in SC2.
EDIT: I wonder if it would be more common if military retirement wasn't a thing.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
Jesus. Did he get all of that from practicing, or a car accident? It could be a combination of poor stress maintenance and overtraining. My body also tenses up when I'm focusing hard, but I'm not hammering out games 10 hrs a day, and I'm sure he takes the level of tensity to another order of magnitude. I'm not an expert, but he really should've used some of his prize money to consult a professional, or just ease up on the training. Maybe do yoga/meditation to train his body to relax, in the heat of performance. Sounds insane that someone would allow themself to get to that point.
Just recently, there was a Japanese boxer who died from a boxing bout. Everyone was donning him with praise and respect for his warrior spirit, but I think he should've been wiser about his approach to boxing. This whole selling your own health for glory is simply irresponsible.
I don't think we ever got a confirmed cause but people knowledgeable about the injury said it was probably bad posture (like leaning too far forward, forcing the neck to move back/up). Sitting in a bad way like that for 70 hours a week on average wouldn't be very good for you.
I know we're a lot more aware of good ergonomics these days but I do think it's surprising that we haven't seen similar cases. Mvp's posture didn't seem to be notably worse than any other pro's, at least outwardly. Really think it must have been a genuine freak injury.
I have such fine posture that people actually notice it and roundly mock compliment me on it. My workstation/gaming setup is all measured out to conform with my best knowledge of good ergonomic practice. I dropped my mouse sensitivity down pretty damn low, the theory being if you need to move your whole arm for bigger mouse movement, you’re not restricting movement purely to your wrist.
Nonetheless I’ve still got a pretty bad right wrist and elbow, plus an unrelated issue that gives me pretty frequent pains in my fingers.
Outside of just not gaming or playing guitar, unfortunately my two most beloved hobbies, I’m just going to have issues. Fortunately I don’t need to be grinding those 8-10 hours a day to enjoy them and it’s not my job, as it is for a progamer.
The elbow has been a thing as long as I can remember, even as a kid I couldn’t throw a ball any distance/with force more than a couple of times before getting a decent level of pain.
So just from personal experience and bias I think it’s rather plausible that Mvp was just unlucky with his physical condition.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
God your comments make me angry. So uneducated and full of your own opinion. Some people get injured more easily, some people's bodies don't hold up over time, would you tell a person suffering from depression 'oh, but for me, doing XYZ after a stressful day helps me reset body and mind, should have tried that then'. Many athletes have career-ending injuries, and I find it extremely tactless to attribute all of these to their own carelessness.
Also, is the first moon landing not to be taken seriously, as their technology and rockets were primitive to what we will have a century from now? In 2011, hundreds of players dedicated their whole lives to try and become what MVP achieved, the competition was arguably more fierce than at any point in the future due to the sheer amount of people trying their very hardest to achieve something!
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
Jesus. Did he get all of that from practicing, or a car accident? It could be a combination of poor stress maintenance and overtraining. My body also tenses up when I'm focusing hard, but I'm not hammering out games 10 hrs a day, and I'm sure he takes the level of tensity to another order of magnitude. I'm not an expert, but he really should've used some of his prize money to consult a professional, or just ease up on the training. Maybe do yoga/meditation to train his body to relax, in the heat of performance. Sounds insane that someone would allow themself to get to that point.
Just recently, there was a Japanese boxer who died from a boxing bout. Everyone was donning him with praise and respect for his warrior spirit, but I think he should've been wiser about his approach to boxing. This whole selling your own health for glory is simply irresponsible.
I don't think we ever got a confirmed cause but people knowledgeable about the injury said it was probably bad posture (like leaning too far forward, forcing the neck to move back/up). Sitting in a bad way like that for 70 hours a week on average wouldn't be very good for you.
I know we're a lot more aware of good ergonomics these days but I do think it's surprising that we haven't seen similar cases. Mvp's posture didn't seem to be notably worse than any other pro's, at least outwardly. Really think it must have been a genuine freak injury.
I have such fine posture that people actually notice it and roundly mock compliment me on it. My workstation/gaming setup is all measured out to conform with my best knowledge of good ergonomic practice. I dropped my mouse sensitivity down pretty damn low, the theory being if you need to move your whole arm for bigger mouse movement, you’re not restricting movement purely to your wrist.
Nonetheless I’ve still got a pretty bad right wrist and elbow, plus an unrelated issue that gives me pretty frequent pains in my fingers.
Outside of just not gaming or playing guitar, unfortunately my two most beloved hobbies, I’m just going to have issues. Fortunately I don’t need to be grinding those 8-10 hours a day to enjoy them and it’s not my job, as it is for a progamer.
The elbow has been a thing as long as I can remember, even as a kid I couldn’t throw a ball any distance/with force more than a couple of times before getting a decent level of pain.
So just from personal experience and bias I think it’s rather plausible that Mvp was just unlucky with his physical condition.
I randomly herniated a disc in my back from carrying a log inside my house to put in the fire. Six years later I still can't ride a bike without sciatic pain or lift weights.
A friend of mine had to temporarily drop out of college and get spinal surgery for degenerative discs in his back despite setting the 400m record at my high school.
TLDR: You're 100% right. The tiniest thing can cause consistent pain for years. Considering Mvp's problem involved his spine/discs, I give him a lot of credit on a personal level for fighting through that. But, "performing despite serious injury" isn't a metric I'd suggest people use to measure players.
Let's get this straight: most of you have no idea when you talk about injuries.
Now on to the point. It was his work, life and in his best interest was making everything and anything to keep himself in good health. MOST of the injuries happen because of weak/tight muscles that cause muscle imbalances/force your body out of the correct position. You sit a lot and don't train - you have tight hip flexors, weak abdominals, glutes, lower back. You start to walk funny (your body can't keep the spine in correct position), you start having lower back pain. You either do something with it or risk serious health problems later in life.
His issues were really simple to reduce or even prevent. Strenght training 2x week, stretching whole body 3x a week, rubber bands for upper body warmups every hour, every day for 5 mins. No time for gym? Get a pair of dumbbells, a pullup bar and rubber bands of various thickness. Focus on shoulders and arms, then back muscles, glutes, abdominals, less so on chest, quads. Does it look like a lot of work? To you, maybe, to me it's 5 hours tops weekly, not counting the warmups every hour between the games. And when you add proper sleep schedule, better diet you let your body recover more properly, you fix the muscle imbalances from all of the sitting, holding arms in front of the body most of the time. You feel better, you are more happy, your career is longer, you earn more money. It is that simple.
But what Mvp did? Probably nothing at all for years, ignored every sign "oh i feel funny here" (tight, light pain etc). Waited till the last moment and it was too late then.
On February 29 2024 19:01 NotSoHappy wrote: Let's get this straight: most of you have no idea when you talk about injuries.
Now on to the point. It was his work, life and in his best interest was making everything and anything to keep himself in good health. MOST of the injuries happen because of weak/tight muscles that cause muscle imbalances/force your body out of the correct position. You sit a lot and don't train - you have tight hip flexors, weak abdominals, glutes, lower back. You start to walk funny (your body can't keep the spine in correct position), you start having lower back pain. You either do something with it or risk serious health problems later in life.
His issues were really simple to reduce or even prevent. Strenght training 2x week, stretching whole body 3x a week, rubber bands for upper body warmups every hour, every day for 5 mins. No time for gym? Get a pair of dumbbells, a pullup bar and rubber bands of various thickness. Focus on shoulders and arms, then back muscles, glutes, abdominals, less so on chest, quads. Does it look like a lot of work? To you, maybe, to me it's 5 hours tops weekly, not counting the warmups every hour between the games. And when you add proper sleep schedule, better diet you let your body recover more properly, you fix the muscle imbalances from all of the sitting, holding arms in front of the body most of the time. You feel better, you are more happy, your career is longer, you earn more money. It is that simple.
But what Mvp did? Probably nothing at all for years, ignored every sign "oh i feel funny here" (tight, light pain etc). Waited till the last moment and it was too late then.
If you were as knowledgeable as you're insisting you are then you'd understand every case is different.
At some point I'll probably just use these endless arguments about statistics in one of the methodology classes I teach to talk about how statistics are far from neutral or self-evident.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Im in the same stance. IF not for injuries, Van Basten or the Phenomenom could have ben the best strikers in history. But they were not. In their prime, they were much more skillful than CR. But the latter is bound to enter history higher than them.
On February 29 2024 20:28 Heartland wrote: At some point I'll probably just use these endless arguments about statistics in one of the methodology classes I teach to talk about how statistics are far from neutral or self-evident.
Would love to read that! Any Starcraft content, especially GOAT related topic, would be interesting to read.
On February 29 2024 20:28 Heartland wrote: At some point I'll probably just use these endless arguments about statistics in one of the methodology classes I teach to talk about how statistics are far from neutral or self-evident.
Would love to read that! Any Starcraft content, especially GOAT related topic, would be interesting to read.
On February 29 2024 20:28 Heartland wrote: At some point I'll probably just use these endless arguments about statistics in one of the methodology classes I teach to talk about how statistics are far from neutral or self-evident.
Would love to read that! Any Starcraft content, especially GOAT related topic, would be interesting to read.
On February 29 2024 20:28 Heartland wrote: At some point I'll probably just use these endless arguments about statistics in one of the methodology classes I teach to talk about how statistics are far from neutral or self-evident.
Would love to read that! Any Starcraft content, especially GOAT related topic, would be interesting to read.
I mean, it is not so fancy. Either we imagine that there is some quantifiable metric we can judge a GOAT or something else by and then we just conclude that whoever has the most in that category is the GOAT. Or, we have the weigh some different categories somehow, such as by stating that titles older than ten years is worth half of more modern titles or whatever. Or, we realize that stats do not speak for themselves but require context, analysis and discussion in a more qualitative sense, but then you also have the issue of never having really decided on the premises for the arguments that are brought to bear. In that sense I think most of these discussions are meaningless and sort of show how stats are far from enough.
On February 29 2024 05:07 ejozl wrote: Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
On February 28 2024 08:30 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 04:08 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:48 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:01 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:32 WombaT wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:03 Pandain wrote: [quote]
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 01:03 Balnazza wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so we Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guys seems really nice.
Yeah, but when your greatest achievement is stealing from your fellow pros by accelerating the death of proleague and committing the equivalent of a federal crime (gambling is illegal in Korea), you're not lacking in virtue, you're just a piece of shit and the sc2 community would have been better off if he never played.
This is a horrible take, and let me kindly explain why:
1. His greatest achievement was redefining the game, being on another level compared to anyone else. He was (is) an extremely talented person. Times more capable than you within your areas of interest. Unfortunately, I have no clue what he's doing right now, but I hope he can implement his talent better.
2. "accelerated the death of the proleague" - you sound like a child without a beloved toy, and, in my heart, I'm totally with you here. But in reality, the proleague would die in any case, as Life and his situation is not the root cause. Know about Five whys technique? Try it here.
3. "equivalent of a federal crime" - my god, you're a moralist! You never broke any laws, sure, never? Never ever? We both know you did, dirty boy... Would you like me to remind you of later law-related issues with KeSpa? He was a 14 (15?) yo boy with talent, temper, and no clue how to control it. This type requires guidance, not punishment.
4. "you're just a piece of shit" - I assume it feels good to break the rules of speech but won't be punished because of the status? And, following good old post-ussr tradition, "you won't ever be brave enough to say this into his face."
5. "Community would have been better off if he never played." - It's similar to saying that community would have been better off if Mizenhauer had never written anything, based on your quoted comment. You wrote something stupid, yes, but you're still a good author overall. Same for Life, sorry.
On February 29 2024 05:07 ejozl wrote: Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
On February 28 2024 08:30 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 04:08 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:48 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:01 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:32 WombaT wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote: [quote] Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 01:03 Balnazza wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so we Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guys seems really nice.
Yeah, but when your greatest achievement is stealing from your fellow pros by accelerating the death of proleague and committing the equivalent of a federal crime (gambling is illegal in Korea), you're not lacking in virtue, you're just a piece of shit and the sc2 community would have been better off if he never played.
2. "accelerated the death of the proleague" - you sound like a child without a beloved toy, and, in my heart, I'm totally with you here. But in reality, the proleague would die in any case, as Life and his situation is not the root cause. Know about Five whys technique? Try it here.
That is just not true. SPOTV had projects in the works for sc2 canceled after the matchfixing scandal. Perhaps proleague would have died regardless (just like GSL today) - but definitely not as early as it did.
On February 29 2024 05:07 ejozl wrote: Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
On February 28 2024 08:30 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 04:08 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:48 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:01 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:32 WombaT wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote: [quote] Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 01:03 Balnazza wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so we Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guys seems really nice.
Yeah, but when your greatest achievement is stealing from your fellow pros by accelerating the death of proleague and committing the equivalent of a federal crime (gambling is illegal in Korea), you're not lacking in virtue, you're just a piece of shit and the sc2 community would have been better off if he never played.
This is a horrible take, and let me kindly explain why:
1. His greatest achievement was redefining the game, being on another level compared to anyone else. He was (is) an extremely talented person. Times more capable than you within your areas of interest. Unfortunately, I have no clue what he's doing right now, but I hope he can implement his talent better.
2. "accelerated the death of the proleague" - you sound like a child without a beloved toy, and, in my heart, I'm totally with you here. But in reality, the proleague would die in any case, as Life and his situation is not the root cause. Know about Five whys technique? Try it here.
3. "equivalent of a federal crime" - my god, you're a moralist! You never broke any laws, sure, never? Never ever? We both know you did, dirty boy... Would you like me to remind you of later law-related issues with KeSpa? He was a 14 (15?) yo boy with talent, temper, and no clue how to control it. This type requires guidance, not punishment.
4. "you're just a piece of shit" - I assume it feels good to break the rules of speech but won't be punished because of the status? And, following good old post-ussr tradition, "you won't ever be brave enough to say this into his face."
5. "Community would have been better off if he never played." - It's similar to saying that community would have been better off if Mizenhauer had never written anything, based on your quoted comment. You wrote something stupid, yes, but you're still a good author overall. Same for Life, sorry.
1)Life was never "on another level compared to anyone else". Serral is on another level compared to anyone else. Mvp was on another level compared to anyone else. Life was just really good at his time, but he wasn't a cut above the rest.
2)Dude, a freaking COURT said the damage he caused was so big it in fact outweight his status as a minor. This isn't an opinion, it is a fact. Is it Lifes fault that we don't have Proleague in 2024? No. Is it his fault that we didn't have a Proleague in 2017? Yeah, it is. He is not the only reason of course, but he accelerated the decline of the league considerably.
3)My god, you're an idiot! Have I done things wrong? Yes, clearly. Have I broken federal laws (or the equivalent of them) and cause the industry that literally funded my life(style) major damages while simultaneously disappointed my fans around the globe? Uh...lemme check, but I feel like the answer to that is no...
4)Dunno how Life looks today, but if there is anyone in the entire Circuit of SC2 that I would have no problem to call a piece of shit to their face, it would be Life. Not only does he deserve it, but I'm rather sure I could take him. Some guy like ToD...yeah, no, dude is a menace.
5)Life did not contribute much to the community. Not even his "omg he is so young and so talented"-story is needed because of Maru. His play was so uninspiring and his "personality" so bland even as a huge Zerg fan I was rooting against him in both of his WCS Finals. The only reason we remember Life is for his conviction, everything else is trivia.
Once again people misunderstanding older events. Proleagues death was absolutely accelerated by Life's conduct, just like saviOr crippled the BW scene which led to sponsors pulling out etc. just that game was popular enough to withstand it.
I'll have to look for it, but there was a video of some older programers sitting around a table and they were talking about how much the match fixing scandals hurt esports in Korea. Not to mention the cultural differences where gambling is actually a crime...
The talent Life had made his actions even worse. If Maru and Life are going toe to toe for years who's to say it doesn't help increase sc2 popularity and keep interest a little higher.
On March 01 2024 01:17 Moonerz wrote: Once again people misunderstanding older events. Proleagues death was absolutely accelerated by Life's conduct, just like saviOr crippled the BW scene which led to sponsors pulling out etc. just that game was popular enough to withstand it.
I'll have to look for it, but there was a video of some older programers sitting around a table and they were talking about how much the match fixing scandals hurt esports in Korea. Not to mention the cultural differences where gambling is actually a crime...
The talent Life had made his actions even worse. If Maru and Life are going toe to toe for years who's to say it doesn't help increase sc2 popularity and keep interest a little higher.
The biggest victim in all this are the dozens of players who lost out on an extra year (might just be wishful thinking, but another year seems plausible) of kespa team salary. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars across all the teams.
On March 01 2024 01:17 Moonerz wrote: Once again people misunderstanding older events. Proleagues death was absolutely accelerated by Life's conduct, just like saviOr crippled the BW scene which led to sponsors pulling out etc. just that game was popular enough to withstand it.
I'll have to look for it, but there was a video of some older programers sitting around a table and they were talking about how much the match fixing scandals hurt esports in Korea. Not to mention the cultural differences where gambling is actually a crime...
The talent Life had made his actions even worse. If Maru and Life are going toe to toe for years who's to say it doesn't help increase sc2 popularity and keep interest a little higher.
The biggest victim in all this are the dozens of players who lost out on an extra year (might just be wishful thinking, but another year seems plausible) of kespa team salary. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars across all the teams.
100%.
What Life did is absolutely inexcusable. I was never mad at him, and like a commenter earlier was trying to sympathize with him, I too tried to understand his position. It doesn't change how much damage his actions made. He simply had to be made an example of. Else, it could happen again. When punishment doesn't hurt, it doesn't work. As for hating/shaming him, or making him a pariah, that is something I don't agree with. He's human, subject to the same propensities for giving into temptations, like all humans. I have no negativity toward him, but honoring him with any kind of GOAT list attribution is really doing more of a disservice to the spirit of competition than his zealous fans understand.
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
God your comments make me angry. So uneducated and full of your own opinion. Some people get injured more easily, some people's bodies don't hold up over time, would you tell a person suffering from depression 'oh, but for me, doing XYZ after a stressful day helps me reset body and mind, should have tried that then'. Many athletes have career-ending injuries, and I find it extremely tactless to attribute all of these to their own carelessness.
Also, is the first moon landing not to be taken seriously, as their technology and rockets were primitive to what we will have a century from now? In 2011, hundreds of players dedicated their whole lives to try and become what MVP achieved, the competition was arguably more fierce than at any point in the future due to the sheer amount of people trying their very hardest to achieve something!
ok rant over.
What an annoying mesage. "Hate your opinions, now listen to mines."
I honestly don't care if he might just be naturally more prone to injury. The fact is that I can't give him something he didn't earn. I can't give him speculative awards. The fact is, MVP achieved a few big wins, and then his performance level petered off. Whether he did or didn't take effort to take care of his body is tangential.
I don't understand the moon landing analogy. My point is clear. What children accomplish globally is fine and great...but I'm not interested in womens tennis, high school track meets, or minor league baseball. I'm more interested in what highest-potential players can do in the peak of their primes. That's where their true potentials are fully realized, and where the best vs the best looks the most incredible. The games between Clem and Serral, Serral and Maru, and Trap and Serral had been some of the most mind-blowing stuff I'd ever seen. When I go back to watch their games, I often play it in x0.25 speed over and over, and still can't comprehend how they pull off some of the wild, insane shit they did, again and again. I seldom got those feelings in the WoL and HotS days.
On March 01 2024 01:17 Moonerz wrote: Once again people misunderstanding older events. Proleagues death was absolutely accelerated by Life's conduct, just like saviOr crippled the BW scene which led to sponsors pulling out etc. just that game was popular enough to withstand it.
I'll have to look for it, but there was a video of some older programers sitting around a table and they were talking about how much the match fixing scandals hurt esports in Korea. Not to mention the cultural differences where gambling is actually a crime...
The talent Life had made his actions even worse. If Maru and Life are going toe to toe for years who's to say it doesn't help increase sc2 popularity and keep interest a little higher.
The biggest victim in all this are the dozens of players who lost out on an extra year (might just be wishful thinking, but another year seems plausible) of kespa team salary. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars across all the teams.
Most likely in hindsight there's also a considerable amount that might be happy they got started on their next step in life a year early.
Hanging around another year in a dying scene for a bit of money most likely isn't worth the same as a 1 year jumpstart on a new carreer.
On March 01 2024 01:17 Moonerz wrote: Once again people misunderstanding older events. Proleagues death was absolutely accelerated by Life's conduct, just like saviOr crippled the BW scene which led to sponsors pulling out etc. just that game was popular enough to withstand it.
I'll have to look for it, but there was a video of some older programers sitting around a table and they were talking about how much the match fixing scandals hurt esports in Korea. Not to mention the cultural differences where gambling is actually a crime...
The talent Life had made his actions even worse. If Maru and Life are going toe to toe for years who's to say it doesn't help increase sc2 popularity and keep interest a little higher.
The biggest victim in all this are the dozens of players who lost out on an extra year (might just be wishful thinking, but another year seems plausible) of kespa team salary. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars across all the teams.
Most likely in hindsight there's also a considerable amount that might be happy they got started on their next step in life a year early.
Hanging around another year in a dying scene for a bit of money most likely isn't worth the same as a 1 year jumpstart on a new carreer.
"Don't blame me for destroying your career and industry you work in by committing federal crime, I am just helping you jump start a new career early!"
The excuses people make up for Life. Truly eye opening.
Perhaps there should be entirely another thread for Life and his career in general. It is clearly stated that he doesnt belong in this list and most of us can understand why. The horse has been long dead already.
On March 01 2024 09:02 Starcloud wrote: Perhaps there should be entirely another thread for Life and his career in general. It is clearly stated that he doesnt belong in this list and most of us can understand why. The horse has been long dead already.
Don't worry, once the final two articles come out we'll have far better things to discuss.
Life's resume was great for the length of time he played (a world championship, two GSLs, a world championship runner up, some weekenders), but he never looked head and shoulders above the rest of the players in the world for a significant period of time. If he were allowed in the list I think he'd belong somewhere between 10th and 7th, but Life's career just wasn't long enough to rack up more achievements + he was never as dominant as MVP was for a time.
Hypothetically, Life probably could have won a lot more, he was an insane talent, but dwelling on hypothetical is pointless (what if Serral got to be in a Kespa house when he was getting started? What if there was no region lock and Maru could farm foreign tournaments? What if Inno stayed fully motivated?)
On March 01 2024 01:17 Moonerz wrote: Once again people misunderstanding older events. Proleagues death was absolutely accelerated by Life's conduct, just like saviOr crippled the BW scene which led to sponsors pulling out etc. just that game was popular enough to withstand it.
I'll have to look for it, but there was a video of some older programers sitting around a table and they were talking about how much the match fixing scandals hurt esports in Korea. Not to mention the cultural differences where gambling is actually a crime...
The talent Life had made his actions even worse. If Maru and Life are going toe to toe for years who's to say it doesn't help increase sc2 popularity and keep interest a little higher.
The biggest victim in all this are the dozens of players who lost out on an extra year (might just be wishful thinking, but another year seems plausible) of kespa team salary. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars across all the teams.
Most likely in hindsight there's also a considerable amount that might be happy they got started on their next step in life a year early.
Hanging around another year in a dying scene for a bit of money most likely isn't worth the same as a 1 year jumpstart on a new carreer.
"Don't blame me for destroying your career and industry you work in by committing federal crime, I am just helping you jump start a new career early!"
The excuses people make up for Life. Truly eye opening.
No excuses for him. But what's the point of keeping with sc2 when it was dying in Korea? Life seems like a perfect excuse for proleague dying but it was going to die regardless. I am not sure it would have even lasted another year, obviously the teams wanted to get out of sc2 and they did so at the first oppurtunity. Unless you are a top20 player making a considerable amount of money that is going to help you further along in life, it was probably better for many to get out. To my knowledge, at least in the BW era, all those pro-teams had B teams with 10+ members and online practice partners that weren't getting paid anything and if you weren't a top5 player on a kespa team you weren't making any money.
The people that were actually good enough kept going and were able to join foreign teams and win money in tournaments.
On March 01 2024 01:17 Moonerz wrote: Once again people misunderstanding older events. Proleagues death was absolutely accelerated by Life's conduct, just like saviOr crippled the BW scene which led to sponsors pulling out etc. just that game was popular enough to withstand it.
I'll have to look for it, but there was a video of some older programers sitting around a table and they were talking about how much the match fixing scandals hurt esports in Korea. Not to mention the cultural differences where gambling is actually a crime...
The talent Life had made his actions even worse. If Maru and Life are going toe to toe for years who's to say it doesn't help increase sc2 popularity and keep interest a little higher.
The biggest victim in all this are the dozens of players who lost out on an extra year (might just be wishful thinking, but another year seems plausible) of kespa team salary. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars across all the teams.
Most likely in hindsight there's also a considerable amount that might be happy they got started on their next step in life a year early.
Hanging around another year in a dying scene for a bit of money most likely isn't worth the same as a 1 year jumpstart on a new carreer.
"Don't blame me for destroying your career and industry you work in by committing federal crime, I am just helping you jump start a new career early!"
The excuses people make up for Life. Truly eye opening. Even
No excuses for him. But what's the point of keeping with sc2 when it was dying in Korea? Life seems like a perfect excuse for proleague dying but it was going to die regardless. I am not sure it would have even lasted another year, obviously the teams wanted to get out of sc2 and they did so at the first oppurtunity. Unless you are a top20 player making a considerable amount of money that is going to help you further along in life, it was probably better for many to get out. To my knowledge, at least in the BW era, all those pro-teams had B teams with 10+ members and online practice partners that weren't getting paid anything and if you weren't a top5 player on a kespa team you weren't making any money.
Even another year is another year of actual salaried work that folks missed out on.
I am frankly unsure on what non-elite players were earning in the Kespa regime, so there is that. Equally by virtue of going the progamer route these guys weren’t doing things like college, so it’s not as if they’re going to walk into many other careers at this point.
On March 01 2024 01:17 Moonerz wrote: Once again people misunderstanding older events. Proleagues death was absolutely accelerated by Life's conduct, just like saviOr crippled the BW scene which led to sponsors pulling out etc. just that game was popular enough to withstand it.
I'll have to look for it, but there was a video of some older programers sitting around a table and they were talking about how much the match fixing scandals hurt esports in Korea. Not to mention the cultural differences where gambling is actually a crime...
The talent Life had made his actions even worse. If Maru and Life are going toe to toe for years who's to say it doesn't help increase sc2 popularity and keep interest a little higher.
The biggest victim in all this are the dozens of players who lost out on an extra year (might just be wishful thinking, but another year seems plausible) of kespa team salary. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars across all the teams.
Most likely in hindsight there's also a considerable amount that might be happy they got started on their next step in life a year early.
Hanging around another year in a dying scene for a bit of money most likely isn't worth the same as a 1 year jumpstart on a new carreer.
"Don't blame me for destroying your career and industry you work in by committing federal crime, I am just helping you jump start a new career early!"
The excuses people make up for Life. Truly eye opening. Even
No excuses for him. But what's the point of keeping with sc2 when it was dying in Korea? Life seems like a perfect excuse for proleague dying but it was going to die regardless. I am not sure it would have even lasted another year, obviously the teams wanted to get out of sc2 and they did so at the first oppurtunity. Unless you are a top20 player making a considerable amount of money that is going to help you further along in life, it was probably better for many to get out. To my knowledge, at least in the BW era, all those pro-teams had B teams with 10+ members and online practice partners that weren't getting paid anything and if you weren't a top5 player on a kespa team you weren't making any money.
Even another year is another year of actual salaried work that folks missed out on.
I am frankly unsure on what non-elite players were earning in the Kespa regime, so there is that. Equally by virtue of going the progamer route these guys weren’t doing things like college, so it’s not as if they’re going to walk into many other careers at this point.
non-elite players on kespa teams were not earning anything. In best case scenarios they got housing and food from the team house and then maybe a couple of hundred dollars a month for low level A-team players. B-teamers and practice partners got absolutely nothing.
Luckily many of the guys that were skilled at BW went into streaming carreers on afreeca, and BW was already reviving around the time the life scandal happend (a bit before that). So there was that carreer available for them. SC2 afreeca streaming never took off the same way. Flash also jumped in early 2016 I think, it was the perfect time for many of them to jump. The BW Scene got built back up from the ground up and is now a behemoth once again in Korea, where even low level pros are earning good money thanks to the university teams and so on.
On March 01 2024 01:17 Moonerz wrote: Once again people misunderstanding older events. Proleagues death was absolutely accelerated by Life's conduct, just like saviOr crippled the BW scene which led to sponsors pulling out etc. just that game was popular enough to withstand it.
I'll have to look for it, but there was a video of some older programers sitting around a table and they were talking about how much the match fixing scandals hurt esports in Korea. Not to mention the cultural differences where gambling is actually a crime...
The talent Life had made his actions even worse. If Maru and Life are going toe to toe for years who's to say it doesn't help increase sc2 popularity and keep interest a little higher.
The biggest victim in all this are the dozens of players who lost out on an extra year (might just be wishful thinking, but another year seems plausible) of kespa team salary. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars across all the teams.
Most likely in hindsight there's also a considerable amount that might be happy they got started on their next step in life a year early.
Hanging around another year in a dying scene for a bit of money most likely isn't worth the same as a 1 year jumpstart on a new carreer.
"Don't blame me for destroying your career and industry you work in by committing federal crime, I am just helping you jump start a new career early!"
The excuses people make up for Life. Truly eye opening. Even
No excuses for him. But what's the point of keeping with sc2 when it was dying in Korea? Life seems like a perfect excuse for proleague dying but it was going to die regardless. I am not sure it would have even lasted another year, obviously the teams wanted to get out of sc2 and they did so at the first oppurtunity. Unless you are a top20 player making a considerable amount of money that is going to help you further along in life, it was probably better for many to get out. To my knowledge, at least in the BW era, all those pro-teams had B teams with 10+ members and online practice partners that weren't getting paid anything and if you weren't a top5 player on a kespa team you weren't making any money.
Even another year is another year of actual salaried work that folks missed out on.
I am frankly unsure on what non-elite players were earning in the Kespa regime, so there is that. Equally by virtue of going the progamer route these guys weren’t doing things like college, so it’s not as if they’re going to walk into many other careers at this point.
non-elite players on kespa teams were not earning anything. In best case scenarios they got housing and food from the team house and then maybe a couple of hundred dollars a month for low level A-team players. B-teamers and practice partners got absolutely nothing.
Luckily many of the guys that were skilled at BW went into streaming carreers on afreeca, and BW was already reviving around the time the life scandal happend (a bit before that). So there was that carreer available for them. SC2 afreeca streaming never took off the same way. Flash also jumped in early 2016 I think, it was the perfect time for many of them to jump. The BW Scene got built back up from the ground up and is now a behemoth once again in Korea, where even low level pros are earning good money thanks to the university teams and so on.
I have no inside whatsoever into the workings of a Proleague team, but I really can't imagine "Non-Elite players" didn't get anything. I know for a fact that in the latest stages of Warcraft 3, when NGL was already collapsed and even WC3L was struggling hard (not that it was ever profitable) even smaller orgs paid atleast some of their players. And we are not talking about orgs having the backing of Samsung or KT or anything like that here - and that was in the midst of the 2008/10 financial crisis that completly burst the WC3 bubble (hello MYM)
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
God your comments make me angry. So uneducated and full of your own opinion. Some people get injured more easily, some people's bodies don't hold up over time, would you tell a person suffering from depression 'oh, but for me, doing XYZ after a stressful day helps me reset body and mind, should have tried that then'. Many athletes have career-ending injuries, and I find it extremely tactless to attribute all of these to their own carelessness.
Also, is the first moon landing not to be taken seriously, as their technology and rockets were primitive to what we will have a century from now? In 2011, hundreds of players dedicated their whole lives to try and become what MVP achieved, the competition was arguably more fierce than at any point in the future due to the sheer amount of people trying their very hardest to achieve something!
ok rant over.
What an annoying mesage. "Hate your opinions, now listen to mines."
I honestly don't care if he might just be naturally more prone to injury. The fact is that I can't give him something he didn't earn. I can't give him speculative awards. The fact is, MVP achieved a few big wins, and then his performance level petered off. Whether he did or didn't take effort to take care of his body is tangential.
I don't understand the moon landing analogy. My point is clear. What children accomplish globally is fine and great...but I'm not interested in womens tennis, high school track meets, or minor league baseball. I'm more interested in what highest-potential players can do in the peak of their primes. That's where their true potentials are fully realized, and where the best vs the best looks the most incredible. The games between Clem and Serral, Serral and Maru, and Trap and Serral had been some of the most mind-blowing stuff I'd ever seen. When I go back to watch their games, I often play it in x0.25 speed over and over, and still can't comprehend how they pull off some of the wild, insane shit they did, again and again. I seldom got those feelings in the WoL and HotS days.
Your analogies make far less sense. What does women's tennis have to do with this discussion? My point is that at the time, this was the highest level Starcraft II one could watch, and the competition was incredibly fierce, thus MVP deserves recognition, even if the level of play was obviously not comparable to today.
Was Pele not one of the all-time greats in football because goalkeepers didn't have their own coaching back then, letting in more shots than nowadays? Did the Beatles not make ground breaking records because the way their tracks are mixed in stereo is completely shit? (Drums in one ear, singing voice in the other).
Achievements must be measured regarding the circumstances in which they were accomplished. And MVP accomplished more than anyone else during his prime, which deserved recognition. The fact that his prime was rather short-lived is irrelevant considering the metrics the author has outlined for this list, so this argument is also nonsensical - otherwise, people such as Rain would not have made the list and we could have simply looked at total money earned to define greatness.
I don't understand this whole "Life" discussion. Guy got caught matchfixing. You have to assume he was fixing a lot more than got caught therefore every game he played is void. He basically never won a single game of Starcraft. Life wasn't talented, Life was a criminal. Take the Tour de France for example: Lance Armstrong admitted to doping and has not won a single Tour de France.
While it appears justified to me to keep "Life" out of any discussions for GOT, I have to say that I find it very unsettling to read how people in this forum write about crime and justice in his case. I am surprised that a lot of people seem to prefer punishment over reintegration, which actually should be the focus of penitentiary systems in "western" countries which includes Korea. It is understandable that "Life" is banned from future competition in SC similar to e.g. Lance Armstrong in cycling, but expressing a wish for him to be humiliated or maybe even physically punished for his crime is wild to me. That is to me even more shocking considering that he was a minor, which should further put the focus on reintegration (in society, not necessarily SC 2 ;-) ) rather than justice as a primary means of punishment. Along these lines, I cannot understand the wish to cancel "Life" not only as a SC2 pro gamer but as a person. I do not wish to see him play SC2 again but I would be interested to hear what happened to him lately and I do feel empathy for him as a "fallen hero".
On March 01 2024 18:59 Gilgamesh_ wrote: While it appears justified to me to keep "Life" out of any discussions for GOT, I have to say that I find it very unsettling to read how people in this forum write about crime and justice in his case. I am surprised that a lot of people seem to prefer punishment over reintegration, which actually should be the focus of penitentiary systems in "western" countries which includes Korea. It is understandable that "Life" is banned from future competition in SC similar to e.g. Lance Armstrong in cycling, but expressing a wish for him to be humiliated or maybe even physically punished for his crime is wild to me. That is to me even more shocking considering that he was a minor, which should further put the focus on reintegration (in society, not necessarily SC 2 ;-) ) rather than justice as a primary means of punishment. Along these lines, I cannot understand the wish to cancel "Life" not only as a SC2 pro gamer but as a person. I do not wish to see him play SC2 again but I would be interested to hear what happened to him lately and I do feel empathy for him as a "fallen hero".
Yeah, some psycho stuff in this thread. A dumb teenager accepted money to lose some matches.
Did this massively impact the scene? Yes. Should he be considered on a `greatest of all time' list? No. But we shouldn't go looking to hope he suffers like he's some monster in a human shell. Christ.
Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
On March 01 2024 18:59 Gilgamesh_ wrote: While it appears justified to me to keep "Life" out of any discussions for GOT, I have to say that I find it very unsettling to read how people in this forum write about crime and justice in his case. I am surprised that a lot of people seem to prefer punishment over reintegration, which actually should be the focus of penitentiary systems in "western" countries which includes Korea. It is understandable that "Life" is banned from future competition in SC similar to e.g. Lance Armstrong in cycling, but expressing a wish for him to be humiliated or maybe even physically punished for his crime is wild to me. That is to me even more shocking considering that he was a minor, which should further put the focus on reintegration (in society, not necessarily SC 2 ;-) ) rather than justice as a primary means of punishment. Along these lines, I cannot understand the wish to cancel "Life" not only as a SC2 pro gamer but as a person. I do not wish to see him play SC2 again but I would be interested to hear what happened to him lately and I do feel empathy for him as a "fallen hero".
You're are completely correct in some regards. I agree Life should be allowed to live whatever life he can (though he is obviously hindered by his past actions and the lack of a university degree). But I think it's pretty fair to say that he should never be allowed to participate in a competitive esport.
I can only speak for myself, but I know how much money Life cost people like soO and that infuriates me. And, even if we're talking about lower tier players, their dream of playing the video game they love for a living was pulled out from under them. The StarCraft pros often go to military almost immediately after retirement and, from there, it doesn't get all that much better since they don't have the degrees/education that will set them up for long term careers. TY, for example, has trained to be a bus driver. It's a stable salary and a reliable job, but I don't think that was the thing he was most looking forward to when he was first signed to a pro team.
I'm sure many people here have committed some kind of crime, state or federal, perhaps when younger and dumber, or something that others here would consider morally wrong.
I forgot how young Life was. This isn't like he killed someone, where the person can never be brought back Sure people betting money lost lots of money, but it's still completely different
The purpose of punishment isn't to cancel people forever, or else the sentence would be a life in jail for anything Once his punishment is dealt and over, everyone should hope (and heck, even support) their re-integration into society as an upstanding person. What's the point in hoping that someone you see was a monster, stay a monster? That's pretty gross, and completely unbeneficial and unproductive
And regarding his wins not being wins, it's not like he was fixing opponents to give free wins to him, he was just being paid money to throw games. So anything he won, he won (unless if facing another matchfixer).
On March 01 2024 18:59 Gilgamesh_ wrote: While it appears justified to me to keep "Life" out of any discussions for GOT, I have to say that I find it very unsettling to read how people in this forum write about crime and justice in his case. I am surprised that a lot of people seem to prefer punishment over reintegration, which actually should be the focus of penitentiary systems in "western" countries which includes Korea. It is understandable that "Life" is banned from future competition in SC similar to e.g. Lance Armstrong in cycling, but expressing a wish for him to be humiliated or maybe even physically punished for his crime is wild to me. That is to me even more shocking considering that he was a minor, which should further put the focus on reintegration (in society, not necessarily SC 2 ;-) ) rather than justice as a primary means of punishment. Along these lines, I cannot understand the wish to cancel "Life" not only as a SC2 pro gamer but as a person. I do not wish to see him play SC2 again but I would be interested to hear what happened to him lately and I do feel empathy for him as a "fallen hero".
Yeah, some psycho stuff in this thread. A dumb teenager accepted money to lose some matches.
Did this massively impact the scene? Yes. Should he be considered on a `greatest of all time' list? No. But we shouldn't go looking to hope he suffers like he's some monster in a human shell. Christ.
Welcome to the Internet, a place built for nuance. You must be new here :-)
More seriously, let's get back to important topics like nitpicking which one of the only two guys in SC2 with 75%+ winrate over 6 years+ is going to be #1 or #2.
On March 01 2024 18:59 Gilgamesh_ wrote: While it appears justified to me to keep "Life" out of any discussions for GOT, I have to say that I find it very unsettling to read how people in this forum write about crime and justice in his case. I am surprised that a lot of people seem to prefer punishment over reintegration, which actually should be the focus of penitentiary systems in "western" countries which includes Korea. It is understandable that "Life" is banned from future competition in SC similar to e.g. Lance Armstrong in cycling, but expressing a wish for him to be humiliated or maybe even physically punished for his crime is wild to me. That is to me even more shocking considering that he was a minor, which should further put the focus on reintegration (in society, not necessarily SC 2 ;-) ) rather than justice as a primary means of punishment. Along these lines, I cannot understand the wish to cancel "Life" not only as a SC2 pro gamer but as a person. I do not wish to see him play SC2 again but I would be interested to hear what happened to him lately and I do feel empathy for him as a "fallen hero".
Yeah, some psycho stuff in this thread. A dumb teenager accepted money to lose some matches.
Did this massively impact the scene? Yes. Should he be considered on a `greatest of all time' list? No. But we shouldn't go looking to hope he suffers like he's some monster in a human shell. Christ.
Welcome to the Internet, a place built for nuance. You must be new here :-)
More seriously, let's get back to important topics like nitpicking which one of the only two guys in SC2 with 75%+ winrate over 6 years+ is going to be #1 or #2.
My bet is 100% on Maru from the criteria and points mentioned in the articles/comments. If it's Serral, I will be pleasantly satisfied though.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
Thank you for saying it. I thought I was the only one hallucinating. First Mvp in top 5, then Dark out of top 10 and finally Rogue behind Maru? Let's get real for once, Maru is one of the most overrated players of all time.
On March 01 2024 18:59 Gilgamesh_ wrote: While it appears justified to me to keep "Life" out of any discussions for GOT, I have to say that I find it very unsettling to read how people in this forum write about crime and justice in his case. I am surprised that a lot of people seem to prefer punishment over reintegration, which actually should be the focus of penitentiary systems in "western" countries which includes Korea. It is understandable that "Life" is banned from future competition in SC similar to e.g. Lance Armstrong in cycling, but expressing a wish for him to be humiliated or maybe even physically punished for his crime is wild to me. That is to me even more shocking considering that he was a minor, which should further put the focus on reintegration (in society, not necessarily SC 2 ;-) ) rather than justice as a primary means of punishment. Along these lines, I cannot understand the wish to cancel "Life" not only as a SC2 pro gamer but as a person. I do not wish to see him play SC2 again but I would be interested to hear what happened to him lately and I do feel empathy for him as a "fallen hero".
Yeah, some psycho stuff in this thread. A dumb teenager accepted money to lose some matches.
Did this massively impact the scene? Yes. Should he be considered on a `greatest of all time' list? No. But we shouldn't go looking to hope he suffers like he's some monster in a human shell. Christ.
Welcome to the Internet, a place built for nuance. You must be new here :-)
More seriously, let's get back to important topics like nitpicking which one of the only two guys in SC2 with 75%+ winrate over 6 years+ is going to be #1 or #2.
My bet is 100% on Maru from the criteria and points mentioned in the articles/comments. If it's Serral, I will be pleasantly satisfied though.
I mean, it's totally reasonable. In the alternative multiverse where he played his finals vs Oliveira at his full potential, (all else equal afterwards), I'm sure he would have been crowned GOAT, Messi-style, by a majority of TL.net denizens and that would have been ok... until the resurgence of chatter from this year that is
On March 01 2024 00:42 stilt wrote: Most overrated player of all time Katowice pre 2021 became a wc just for the benefits of his legacy lol
Poor Dark, I am not even a big fan but he's seriously underrated.
But yes Rogue was just extremely inconsistent just got lucky in tournaments people consider "big", kinda like Oliveira got lucky, but not to that extent.
sOs is also extremely overrated.
People read too much into the noise and not see the whole picture.
Your katowice statement also reminds me... who remembers when GSL vs The World was a GSL? Worthy enough of the G5L trophy.
My bet is 100% on Maru from the criteria and points mentioned in the articles/comments. If it's Serral, I will be pleasantly satisfied though.
Yeah. Rogue has won a lot more outside Korea in important tournaments and still was number 3........and then we get to the eternal argument of "but Serral hasnt won anything in Korea(Code S)".......By these criterias it must be Maru. Otherwise The list doesnt make sense. Bit sad, I must admit.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
Wow, great read. Somehow I missed this comment until it was quoted. You bring up lots of good points. And yeah, Rogue won 3 WCs and 4 GSLs while Maru was around. Maru won 7 GSLs, and had an OSL and SSL win, but the 5th-7th GSL were in the GSL's final 2-3 years of life... and also AFTER Rogue left, AFTER Rogue dominated Maru in GSL finals the last time they met there.
In my mind, i had moved Maru back above Rogue when he got his 5th-7th GSL win. But now that we see 2024 really might be the end, and the KR scene is shrinking so much, and KRs failing to perform at international WC tier events... it really makes me not put much value into the 5th-7th GSL wins anymore, especially the 6th-7th ones with the much smaller prize pools, not playing all the matches live in person (more pressure and stuff), since the Semis and Finals are played in the same day... instead of you know, having a week of prep for the tournament that's supposed to be renowned as hard because of the high amount of prep players can do).
So... after reading your post maybe I should reconsider moving Maru back down to slightly below Rogue. Though, Maru getting those other starleague wins outside of GSL are very good for sure. But it's also really good that Rogue won WCs where Serral was at.
Now I'm kind of sad that we didn't get to see Rogue vs Serral at a Bo7 Grand Finals at a WC.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
What Nasigil said. The insanity of people to think that 1st place is somehow infinitely more valued/glorious than 2nd place still boggles my mind. A Bo7 grand finale win is great, but isn't THAT great. Rogue in my mind was never contender for "favorite" player to win in any tournament, while Serral and to a lesser degree Maru were always favorite. Rogue, even when he won, never did so dominantly, dropping many maps in tournaments. Rogue also had many, many flubs compared to Maru. Maru had far too many semis and 2nd places to discount. I don't think this is even a hard call. Maru > Rogue.
What I can grant about Rogue is his integrity. He called out his own race's OPness in 2018, and that was honorable of him. In my mind, he's one of the greatest, but his career achievements were overshadowed by Maru's.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
So yeah, it really comes down to how much you value overall deep finishes and smaller tournaments (that still has enough top players participating) in a GOAT ranking. Those 2nd places and semifinals are not the best thing, but when you have 11 2nd place and 20 semifinals, do they still counts for nothing? If you think winning the biggest tournaments is EVERYTHING and nothing else should be considered, then you can probably make a case for Rogue being actual GOAT over both Maru and Serral. There will be many people disagree with that criteria tho.
For me, the Starcraft 2 pro scene just has wayyyy too many different type of tournaments that top players plays in, it's really hard for me to single out just WC tournaments and say it's definitely matters so much more than others.
If we let Maru win 2023 Katowice, he would do it by beating Solar, Ragnarok and Oliveira, while Serral won Masters of Coliseum 7 by going through Solar, Maru, Reynor and herO. It's hard for me to hype up that specific Katowice to be something so much more prestigious than MC7. A good GOAT ranking should definitely take these kind of variance into consideration.
But credits to Rogue, all his big wins are extremely solid. The only thing against him is just how often he bombs out of tournaments compared to the other two GOAT candidates.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Um...how the hell is DH Last Chance cheaper than IEM Shanghai??? The latter net Rogue $10,000 which is the same as Maru's $10,000 from beating Last Chance. Maru's two KoB wins net him more money than either tournaments. WESG wasn't insignificant, having a massive prize pool. It could be considered a mini WC. Maru carries his team to team league finishes. Rogue never did (winrate wasn't good enough).
Stop only counting tournament wins, and consider tournament standings. Do you even realize how much money Maru earned from just his 2nd standings alone? He probably made more cash from those 2nd-4th places than Rogue's entire earnings if you discount his 3 WCs.
On March 01 2024 18:59 Gilgamesh_ wrote: While it appears justified to me to keep "Life" out of any discussions for GOT, I have to say that I find it very unsettling to read how people in this forum write about crime and justice in his case. I am surprised that a lot of people seem to prefer punishment over reintegration, which actually should be the focus of penitentiary systems in "western" countries which includes Korea. It is understandable that "Life" is banned from future competition in SC similar to e.g. Lance Armstrong in cycling, but expressing a wish for him to be humiliated or maybe even physically punished for his crime is wild to me. That is to me even more shocking considering that he was a minor, which should further put the focus on reintegration (in society, not necessarily SC 2 ;-) ) rather than justice as a primary means of punishment. Along these lines, I cannot understand the wish to cancel "Life" not only as a SC2 pro gamer but as a person. I do not wish to see him play SC2 again but I would be interested to hear what happened to him lately and I do feel empathy for him as a "fallen hero".
Yeah, some psycho stuff in this thread. A dumb teenager accepted money to lose some matches.
Did this massively impact the scene? Yes. Should he be considered on a `greatest of all time' list? No. But we shouldn't go looking to hope he suffers like he's some monster in a human shell. Christ.
Welcome to the Internet, a place built for nuance. You must be new here :-)
More seriously, let's get back to important topics like nitpicking which one of the only two guys in SC2 with 75%+ winrate over 6 years+ is going to be #1 or #2.
My bet is 100% on Maru from the criteria and points mentioned in the articles/comments. If it's Serral, I will be pleasantly satisfied though.
My impression is that Miz values having an era of dominance, or a reputation for dominance, quite highly. Just looking at achievements Rogue is probably ahead of Maru but never had a long period of being the consensus best in the world - he was just someone who was very good at winning and always a contender. That's probably why Dark got left off the list; he never had that aura. Dark had the best year of anyone in 2019, but I think if you asked most people throughout 2019 they would have told you Serral was the best player in the world.
Outside of the online era where he often shat the bed in ZvZ, Serral has been viewed as the favorite in every tournament for a long time. Maru had a hyper dominant 2018 but otherwise can't really compete, but also has so many GSL and achievements going back to HOTS.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
Can you provide concrete evidence that KeSPA era Code S was harder than any tournament Rogue won or is this one of those "i'll just say whatever I want and claim its an established fact" things?
For those who will read to much into this: It's a thought experiment............
On March 01 2024 20:32 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Agreed @Gilgamesh_ @Ciaus237
I'm sure many people here have committed some kind of crime, state or federal, perhaps when younger and dumber, or something that others here would consider morally wrong.
I forgot how young Life was. This isn't like he killed someone, where the person can never be brought back Sure people betting money lost lots of money, but it's still completely different
The purpose of punishment isn't to cancel people forever, or else the sentence would be a life in jail for anything Once his punishment is dealt and over, everyone should hope (and heck, even support) their re-integration into society as an upstanding person. What's the point in hoping that someone you see was a monster, stay a monster? That's pretty gross, and completely unbeneficial and unproductive
And regarding his wins not being wins, it's not like he was fixing opponents to give free wins to him, he was just being paid money to throw games. So anything he won, he won (unless if facing another matchfixer).
In the pantheon of sports cheating, aside from a systemic doping program like we’ve seen Russia be banned from athletics competitions for years, or what used to be common in cycling, match fixing is as bad as one can do.
You rip the whole fabric of competition apart, more so than an individual cheating to win in various ways. At least when an individual cheats to win at gets caught, they’re cheating to get an advantage over other folks trying to win, you maybe question some of that individual’s results achieved but not the wider competition.
When multiple people start throwing games, it has a ripple effect that has one questioning the whole competition, including the results of players who aren’t involved in fixing in any way.
It’s why it’s such an insidious practice, let’s just say it turns out in hypothetical land that Proleague was absolutely, hugely rife with match fixing over its run. How can one have a discussion about GOATs with recourse to stats and feats if you can’t have confidence in the competition having that integrity at its base?
I’m in agreement that Life shouldn’t be burned at the stake, he’s done his time and in the wider scheme of things there are many, many worse crimes out there. Guy was young and I’m a big believer in rehabilitation, 100%
On the flipside I can’t really think of a better punishment than currently exists as per StarCraft specially. Life did a ton of damage to pro StarCraft, ergo Life is banned from pro StarCraft and his name is akin to Voldemort’s. You can’t really get much harsher, and more lenient the punishment doesn’t really fit the crime. I mean Life was a direct contributor to people losing their jobs here, so him returning to SC2 to me would feel rather unfair to those folks.
The worst part of folks defending Life is they’re defending Life just because he’s actually a top tier player, which is precisely why his involvement was by far the least justifiable. Like Savior before him, he was amongst the very best. He was actually earning decent money as a progamer.
The other pros involved were also young, busting their ass to make it but didn’t have either the talent or some other factor to quite break into the top tier. They weren’t earning the kind of cash Life was, they hadn’t achieved the glory he did, nor the prestige of being a fan favourite. Far more explicable that they were tempted here than the guy none of that applies to.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
Can you provide concrete evidence that KeSPA era Code S was harder than any tournament Rogue won or is this one of those "i'll just say whatever I want and claim its an established fact" things?
For those who will read to much into this: It's a thought experiment............
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
Can you provide concrete evidence that KeSPA era Code S was harder than any tournament Rogue won or is this one of those "i'll just say whatever I want and claim its an established fact" things?
For those who will read to much into this: It's a thought experiment............
You have done that yourself already so your comment honestly surprises me
On July 03 2023 02:16 Charoisaur wrote: I think the thing with players appearing more stable is just a result of there just being far fewer players, which means there are fewer players who can threaten the top guys. In 2015 there were like 12 championship contenders, at least 12 more players who can beat any player on a good day but aren't quite contenders themselves and then the players who mostly lost in the first rounds of any given tournament. And players who belonged to the first category rarely lost to the players in the third category even back then.
Nothing has changed about that, but there are just far fewer players in each of the categories and players belonging to the latter category can now make strong runs with a bit of bracket luck.
Case in point—these are the groups from SSL Season 3 in 2015.
At this point, Classic had won GSL and SSL, Rain had won GSL, Dream had been in 2 SSL finals, Dear had won GSL, herO would go on to win this season, INnoVation would win his second Code S by the end of 2015, Life was a top 2 player in the world in Season 1 of 2015, sOs was a few months away fro winning his second Blizzcon, ByuL was busy making the finals of SSL/GSL three times in like five or six months? Zest was Zest and Maru was Maru.
There are 11 Individual League finalists among these 16 players, most of whom won big events that very year. As for the other five, TY, Rogue and Stats would go won to win Code S. It's a remarkable assemblage of talent.
I miss it, but less than I did in prior years. The games are extremely high level these days and there are plenty of players playing great StarCraft.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
While in an ideal world this is somewhat true, equally by necessity that was how top level SC2 had to be played for a period enforced by external circumstances.
The fields of these tournaments were bloody strong, Maru did very well in this period. Trap moved the needle from being a very good player to a truly great player. To me it’s a bit arbitrary just scrubbing that whole period from the record.
As I’ve said before, depending on how you weight things one can place Rogue above Maru or Serral, but I don’t see a way of placing him above both without adding a bunch of arbitrary caveats.
Maru has the better HoTS career, more Starleagues, but Rogue has his World Championships, so if you value the latter extremely highly he can place above Maru. But by that weighting, Serral equals Rogue with way more tournament wins and placements and he wins the numbers argument. Sure Rogue can place above Serral if you weight Starleagues highly, but as mentioned earlier Maru beats him on that metric.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
Can you provide concrete evidence that KeSPA era Code S was harder than any tournament Rogue won or is this one of those "i'll just say whatever I want and claim its an established fact" things?
For those who will read to much into this: It's a thought experiment............
You have done that yourself already so your comment honestly surprises me
On July 03 2023 02:16 Charoisaur wrote: I think the thing with players appearing more stable is just a result of there just being far fewer players, which means there are fewer players who can threaten the top guys. In 2015 there were like 12 championship contenders, at least 12 more players who can beat any player on a good day but aren't quite contenders themselves and then the players who mostly lost in the first rounds of any given tournament. And players who belonged to the first category rarely lost to the players in the third category even back then.
Nothing has changed about that, but there are just far fewer players in each of the categories and players belonging to the latter category can now make strong runs with a bit of bracket luck.
Case in point—these are the groups from SSL Season 3 in 2015.
At this point, Classic had won GSL and SSL, Rain had won GSL, Dream had been in 2 SSL finals, Dear had won GSL, herO would go on to win this season, INnoVation would win his second Code S by the end of 2015, Life was a top 2 player in the world in Season 1 of 2015, sOs was a few months away fro winning his second Blizzcon, ByuL was busy making the finals of SSL/GSL three times in like five or six months? Zest was Zest and Maru was Maru.
There are 11 Individual League finalists among these 16 players, most of whom won big events that very year. As for the other five, TY, Rogue and Stats would go won to win Code S. It's a remarkable assemblage of talent.
I miss it, but less than I did in prior years. The games are extremely high level these days and there are plenty of players playing great StarCraft.
This is a great example of how hard it was and I agree with you 100% in that regard.
I think we're both correct in this situation, but I have always wondered how much having 13 great players matters when herO played no more than five of them. I personally think it does and the overall quality has to mean something, but would the event be all that different if you replaced the people who were eliminated in the r16 with random tl.net users, but retained TY, Rogue, Rain, MyuNgSiK. herO, Inno, Byul and Zest? It's obviously less difficult (due to strength of opponent), but it's a challenge to pin down what the r32 fodder players added to Code S during HotS. There are plenty of examples of great players losing in the r32 back then, but that's been a constant throughout the game's history.
Sadly, to capture the true nuance requires more time than should realistically be spent on a forum post. Just looking at that post of mine, it's clear I'm missing out on a lot of context and if it were part of an article it would have gotten way more attention in the editing stages.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
So basically sOs and PartinG (I'm surprised about that honestly, you learn something new every day). Mixing the three foreigners into this doesn't feel that convincing (I'm not even sure if Oliveira ever tried GSL? I think so but not certain). Rogue, Dark, Mvp, the matchfixers and ByuN however did manage to win atleast one GSL. But even if you would include the three and make it a 5:5 ratio...if you reverse that for GSL-winners...
Of course that is to expected considering that you have multiple GSLs vs. only one (or at best two) World Cups per year, I get that. But that alone raises the stakes considerably. You can always win the next GSL, but even making it to the next World Cup was actually quite a feat, considering that (as a korean) you had to do well in GSL/SSL/whatever for an entire year. Even Maru missed out multiple BlizzCons, that is how hard it was to even qualify to that damn thing.
Oh whoops, forgot: You are also correct that it is hard to compare players of different eras. But isn't that effectively what a GOAT-list is and also what you are doing? If you say "I rate anything that happened 2013-216 than anything else" that is exactly that. If someone else says the same but goes the other extreme and says "Only stuff after 2018 counts", you can flush a good chunk of this Top 10 down the toilet. Because then you HAVE to include players like Reynor, no way around it
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
Oh whoops, forgot: You are also correct that it is hard to compare players of different eras. But isn't that effectively what a GOAT-list is and also what you are doing? If you say "I rate anything that happened 2013-216 than anything else" that is exactly that. If someone else says the same but goes the other extreme and says "Only stuff after 2018 counts", you can flush a good chunk of this Top 10 down the toilet. Because then you HAVE to include players like Reynor, no way around it
You can compare accomplishments but not skill. First off, how would you even measure that the skill has increased given that the players are playing a vastly different game? Second, how do you determine what's more impressive - figuring out everything by yourself and pioneering the metagame ala Mvp or copying the builds others have created and iterate them to perfection ala Serral. You can only compare the skill level of players compared to the players they were facing.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
You are committing the grave mistake of comparing "skill", something utterly meaningless when there are only like 8 players in today's scene who's level of play has an argument to be above that of HotS/early LotV era. Actually, less than 8, Dark himself would not buy that claim.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
Oh whoops, forgot: You are also correct that it is hard to compare players of different eras. But isn't that effectively what a GOAT-list is and also what you are doing? If you say "I rate anything that happened 2013-216 than anything else" that is exactly that. If someone else says the same but goes the other extreme and says "Only stuff after 2018 counts", you can flush a good chunk of this Top 10 down the toilet. Because then you HAVE to include players like Reynor, no way around it
You can compare accomplishments but not skill. First off, how would you even measure that the skill has increased given that the players are playing a vastly different game? Second, how do you determine what's more impressive - figuring out everything by yourself and pioneering the metagame ala Mvp or copying the builds others have created and iterate them to perfection ala Serral. You can only compare the skill level of players compared to the players they were facing.
There are several metrics. APMs have increased all across the board, and quite significantly. Armies became much more complex, which made it much harder to control. There's a far greater degree of proliferation of creep spread, where spreading creep is harder than it used to be. There's a lot more burrow play, which is APM intensive. Ghosts became the norm, and they require a lot of APM and attention to babysit and keep alive.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
On March 02 2024 00:52 LeFaucheurishere wrote: [quote]
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
You are committing the grave mistake of comparing "skill", something utterly meaningless when there are only like 8 players in today's scene who's level of play has an argument to be above that of HotS/early LotV era. Actually, less than 8, Dark himself would not buy that claim.
"Grave mistake." Lol Oh nooo, they're comin to git me!
We don't need more players of the caliber of Heromarines, Showtime, Classic, DRG, etc. to be in the scene to know that the top5 players are what they are. I don't know what Dark said about his own skill, but reality doesn't revolve around his opinion. He may very well be worse than before. In fact, based on his Aligulac and tournament results in recent years, there's an argument for that claim. However, more likely is that he just couldn't keep up with his contemporaries, who'd still been improving rapidly while he improved less rapidly.
On March 02 2024 00:52 LeFaucheurishere wrote: [quote]
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and some of the competitors couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had another 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
On March 02 2024 01:52 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and the people competing for the most part couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had at least 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
You’ve also got to factor in not just shifting metas, but literal new iterations of the game here. Which is something that makes SC2 distinct from most regular sports or indeed something like chess, that have remained somewhat static
Most of what made SoS a great player got completely neutered in LoTV. He had a strategic edge in early/mid-game to compensate for him not being a mechanical monster and that phase barely existed after those changes.
In a strategy game, being good at the strategy side of things should be weighted somewhat highly no?
And I mean almost nobody is arguing for competition levels in the early 2010s, it’s like entirely the ‘Kespa’ period from HoTS to early Legacy
On March 02 2024 01:52 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and some of the competitors couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had another 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
I don't see how any of this has anything to do with what I said. The game would feel just as hard for a 2010 player playing against a 2010 player as it would a 2024 player against a 2024. It doesn't matter if the game is faster, more figured out or whatever adjective you want to use. If we took a 2024 pro and put them against a 2024 rando, that game would feel very easy to the pro despite their opponent's having access to all the years of knowledge. Remember, it's a 1v1 sport. When you play a 1v1 sport (except for golf where you and others play against the course), the game is only as hard as your opponent is skilled relative to you.
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and some of the competitors couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had another 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
I don't see how any of this has anything to do with what I said. The game would feel just as hard for a 2010 player playing against a 2010 player as it would a 2024 player against a 2024. It doesn't matter if the game is faster, more figured out or whatever adjective you want to use. If we took a 2024 pro and put them against a 2024 rando, that game would feel very easy to the pro despite their opponent's having access to all the years of knowledge. Remember, it's a 1v1 sport. When you play a 1v1 sport (except for golf where you and others play against the course), the game is only as hard as your opponent is skilled relative to you.
If difficulty of a win is what measures the greatness of a win, I would agree with you. Doesn't bother me that people find early eras of SC2 that interesting. I've been playing SC:BW since early 2000s, but even when WoL came out, I never felt as excited by professional SC2 gameplays as I have in the past few years. I don't remember any zerg army composed of 5-6 different unit types, not including spore crawlers, back in 2014. My only disappointment is that we lost so many great protoss, and PvT seems a bit lopsided, and Protoss overall could use more high-level tools. Otherwise, the current era of SC2 is rather amazing.
The myth that things were 'a lot' harder in the past have to die, first because of Miz's argument, second because these things are logarithmic. Yes we went from having to win a Ro16 to an Ro8. That's 3 matches instead of 4. For the top players we mention, who generally have a local winrate of 75% over matches (they become good if they can maintain it for a year, great if they can maintain it for 3 years, GOATesque if 5), this means just about 25% more chances of being eliminated. This is litterally quantifiable and hard to argue with.
So if you tell me 'I value 2014 wins 25-30% more than 2022 ones', that's a valid and reasonable position, but 'a lot more' just sounds like mathematically uninformed hyperbole.
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and some of the competitors couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had another 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
The game would feel just as hard for a 2010 player playing against a 2010 player as it would a 2024 player against a 2024. [...] When you play a 1v1 sport (except for golf where you and others play against the course), the game is only as hard as your opponent is skilled relative to you.
I think you are proving the opposite of the point you are intending to make.
Of course the perceived level of difficulty is independent of the absolute level of skill involved. When I play a game of chess against a friend it may feel as hard for me as it feels for Carlsen to play against Caruana. But the level of play is vastly different in terms of objective metrics, like how many variations we are calculating. The same applies to SC2.
Using the experienced level of difficulty as a metric is a terrible approach not enough. It may feel more difficult for a Bronze player to win a game against a buddy than it feels for Serral to 4-0 Maru in the grand finals of Katowice but this does not make the Bronze leaguer the GoaT.
Obviously, then, what is the best level of play increases over time, so I agree that to some degree the relative strength at any given point in time must be taken into account.
But it is, in my view, mistaken to ignore the absolute level of skill when judging players in a skill game like SC2.
On March 02 2024 07:06 MyLovelyLurker wrote: The myth that things were 'a lot' harder in the past have to die, first because of Miz's argument, second because these things are logarithmic. Yes we went from having to win a Ro16 to an Ro8. That's 3 matches instead of 4. For the top players we mention, who generally have a local winrate of 75% over matches (they become good if they can maintain it for a year, great if they can maintain it for 3 years, GOATesque if 5), this means just about 25% more chances of being eliminated. This is litterally quantifiable and hard to argue with.
So if you tell me 'I value 2014 wins 25-30% more than 2022 ones', that's a valid and reasonable position, but 'a lot more' just sounds like mathematically uninformed hyperbole.
Nobody has a 75% win rate in the eras we’re talking about.
We’re not transplanting somebody who does into a deeper field, like that 75% player just didn’t exist back in the day.
Mathematically yeah field depth isn’t all that important if you inject a person with a 75% win rate against all comers, but such a creature just didn’t exist at the time we’re talking about the ‘most competitive’ era.
So you’re left with two possibilities, either folks hadn’t figured the game out enough to dominate, and if someone had they would have, or you had more top, top players to compete with and you just can’t hope to regularly dominate.
It would strike me that the latter is way more likely than the former
On March 02 2024 07:06 MyLovelyLurker wrote: The myth that things were 'a lot' harder in the past have to die, first because of Miz's argument, second because these things are logarithmic. Yes we went from having to win a Ro16 to an Ro8. That's 3 matches instead of 4. For the top players we mention, who generally have a local winrate of 75% over matches (they become good if they can maintain it for a year, great if they can maintain it for 3 years, GOATesque if 5), this means just about 25% more chances of being eliminated. This is litterally quantifiable and hard to argue with.
So if you tell me 'I value 2014 wins 25-30% more than 2022 ones', that's a valid and reasonable position, but 'a lot more' just sounds like mathematically uninformed hyperbole.
Nobody has a 75% win rate in the eras we’re talking about.
We’re not transplanting somebody who does into a deeper field, like that 75% player just didn’t exist back in the day.
Mathematically yeah field depth isn’t all that important if you inject a person with a 75% win rate against all comers, but such a creature just didn’t exist at the time we’re talking about the ‘most competitive’ era.
So you’re left with two possibilities, either folks hadn’t figured the game out enough to dominate, and if someone had they would have, or you had more top, top players to compete with and you just can’t hope to regularly dominate.
It would strike me that the latter is way more likely than the former
Actually, Rain, Soo, ByuN, Inno and Maru did (Maru if you consider offline), each for a year or more in between 2013-2016. So yes this is both surprising and also singlehandedly justifies their presence on the list (this is Korean only but online) due to the famous 'invicibility aura', except for Soo ofc.
My view is now that you can come up with a decent way of quantifying field depth, and that's basically the log_2 of the number of tournament contenders, that is, players with a winrate above 60% or so. Gonna need to start putting graphs.
Once again, it doesn't make sense to compare different eras based on players' abilities and gameplay quality, as if you could ever transport anyone back in time. WC3 has been out for 20-some years now, but it's competitive scene is nothing relative to 2008. I would imagine most top players today would beat a player back in 2008 though. But winning today in WC3 has almost no weight, because fewer people are trying, and fewer people are trying their hardest. This also applies to BW versus 2007-2010 BW too.
It gets messier when the game literally changes over time as it did over our expansions. Broodwar only changed in map design (though that was still very influential), there weren't literally units changing.
But dominance when the field is bigger, and more importantly, trying harder, should carry more weight than dominance when the game is on its way out. HotS was very obviously the most competitive era, with a few years on both sides being very competitive. Since 2020? It's sort of a joke in comparison. Look at GSL. A GSL win today is less impressive than a top 8 back in 2014, honestly (sry Maru). It's still impressive, and probably more impressive than one of those smaller IEMs or MLGs... But it's not what it was.
On March 02 2024 09:58 Blargh wrote: Once again, it doesn't make sense to compare different eras based on players' abilities and gameplay quality, as if you could ever transport anyone back in time. WC3 has been out for 20-some years now, but it's competitive scene is nothing relative to 2008. I would imagine most top players today would beat a player back in 2008 though. But winning today in WC3 has almost no weight, because fewer people are trying, and fewer people are trying their hardest. This also applies to BW versus 2007-2010 BW too.
It gets messier when the game literally changes over time as it did over our expansions. Broodwar only changed in map design (though that was still very influential), there weren't literally units changing.
But dominance when the field is bigger, and more importantly, trying harder, should carry more weight than dominance when the game is on its way out. HotS was very obviously the most competitive era, with a few years on both sides being very competitive. Since 2020? It's sort of a joke in comparison. Look at GSL. A GSL win today is less impressive than a top 8 back in 2014, honestly (sry Maru). It's still impressive, and probably more impressive than one of those smaller IEMs or MLGs... But it's not what it was.
And yet even people like Grubby bring Happy into the GOAT-discussion (not that there is much of it in WC3). A player said Grubby had on farm status between 2005-2010...not sure if Grubby lost even a single map against Happy, nevermind a series. While the scene is mostly online and it is usually the same eight players (mix of koreans and chinese plus Happy) that play out the few tournaments WC3 has, you can still acknowledge Happys dominance and filter it in somewhere. If someone would make this Top 10 list for WC3, I'm pretty sure Happy would not only be on it, but actually be quite high on it.
But the question for me is: If you really want to quantify "eras", you have your job cut out for you. Because it is a full-on nightmare. Lets take Maru for example: People often mention his "amazing results" in HotS, but if we pretend like anything after HotS doesn't count, Maru has no business to even be in the discussion for GOATness. Top 10 sure, but No. 1? Why? With 2 Premier wins and not much else to his name? Innovation, Zest, maybe even TaeJa and Mvp...so many other people come before that. Marus results in HotS are "amazing" only in hindsight, because they mix with his long-lasting career as a player. Okay, maybe too harsh. You yourself used 2020 as the cutoff. But then again...it is not like players since then on a global scale played for scraps, there is still very big money in the scene. Just GSL kinda slacked off. Serral just won 150K, which is a bit under the money you would have got if you won all three GSLs of 2014. How can anyone say "well, that doesn't count for anything because Symbol and Seed aren't around anymore"? If Serral won the 2nd most important tournament of the year and it was the "PiG Cup" for 250 Dollar then yes, sure, forget about it if you want to find the GOAT. But this is still a pretty big payout, so it is safe to assume no one "from the old days" thinks "lol, these scrubs today, I need one month of training and I'm back in business". Because then they would do exactly that.
In the end, the safest bet would be to take Mizenhauers approach: Even today, to win a World Championship, you have to beat the best players in the world. And there is still enough competition to acknowledge that. And to win GSL you still have to win some pretty heavy-hitters. Maybe you can downsize it a bit, count wins only have for the statistic or whatever, but saying they count for nothing just seems like an unfair outlook on the entire scene.
On March 02 2024 03:00 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and some of the competitors couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had another 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
I don't see how any of this has anything to do with what I said. The game would feel just as hard for a 2010 player playing against a 2010 player as it would a 2024 player against a 2024. It doesn't matter if the game is faster, more figured out or whatever adjective you want to use. If we took a 2024 pro and put them against a 2024 rando, that game would feel very easy to the pro despite their opponent's having access to all the years of knowledge. Remember, it's a 1v1 sport. When you play a 1v1 sport (except for golf where you and others play against the course), the game is only as hard as your opponent is skilled relative to you.
If difficulty of a win is what measures the greatness of a win, I would agree with you. Doesn't bother me that people find early eras of SC2 that interesting. I've been playing SC:BW since early 2000s, but even when WoL came out, I never felt as excited by professional SC2 gameplays as I have in the past few years. I don't remember any zerg army composed of 5-6 different unit types, not including spore crawlers, back in 2014. My only disappointment is that we lost so many great protoss, and PvT seems a bit lopsided, and Protoss overall could use more high-level tools. Otherwise, the current era of SC2 is rather amazing.
Arguing with the usage of more different unit types is a very bad argument because that's largely (probably solely) due to the game changing. Just take TvZ for example. Ghosts were shit and Liberators didn't exist in HotS, therefore there was nothing to tech to past MMMM and thus Zerg didn't need to diversify their responses either.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and some of the competitors couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had another 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
I don't see how any of this has anything to do with what I said. The game would feel just as hard for a 2010 player playing against a 2010 player as it would a 2024 player against a 2024. It doesn't matter if the game is faster, more figured out or whatever adjective you want to use. If we took a 2024 pro and put them against a 2024 rando, that game would feel very easy to the pro despite their opponent's having access to all the years of knowledge. Remember, it's a 1v1 sport. When you play a 1v1 sport (except for golf where you and others play against the course), the game is only as hard as your opponent is skilled relative to you.
If difficulty of a win is what measures the greatness of a win, I would agree with you. Doesn't bother me that people find early eras of SC2 that interesting. I've been playing SC:BW since early 2000s, but even when WoL came out, I never felt as excited by professional SC2 gameplays as I have in the past few years. I don't remember any zerg army composed of 5-6 different unit types, not including spore crawlers, back in 2014. My only disappointment is that we lost so many great protoss, and PvT seems a bit lopsided, and Protoss overall could use more high-level tools. Otherwise, the current era of SC2 is rather amazing.
Arguing with the usage of more different unit types is a very bad argument because that's largely (probably solely) due to the game changing. Just take TvZ for example. Ghosts were shit and Liberators didn't exist in HotS, therefore there was nothing to tech to past MMMM and thus Zerg didn't need to diversify their responses either.
And what do you think ushered the changes? I'm not just talking about a new game expansion being added. Look at early LotV days compared to today. If players could make fewer types of units work at the highest level, why would they incorporate more? That would do more harm than good, because it's better to manage a simpler army that you can manage, than to make an unnecessarily complex army, where your vipers are just flying into marines, and infestors are moving into their death/EMPs for no good reason. They incorporated more because the next level of effective play demanded it, which also required them to up their mechanical skills in order to be able to manage their more complex armies. It's a very good argument.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac.
Life was the best zerg of 2015 and one game away from winning back to back Blizzcons. He was hardly being eclipsed by other zergs.
On March 02 2024 03:32 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and some of the competitors couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had another 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
I don't see how any of this has anything to do with what I said. The game would feel just as hard for a 2010 player playing against a 2010 player as it would a 2024 player against a 2024. It doesn't matter if the game is faster, more figured out or whatever adjective you want to use. If we took a 2024 pro and put them against a 2024 rando, that game would feel very easy to the pro despite their opponent's having access to all the years of knowledge. Remember, it's a 1v1 sport. When you play a 1v1 sport (except for golf where you and others play against the course), the game is only as hard as your opponent is skilled relative to you.
If difficulty of a win is what measures the greatness of a win, I would agree with you. Doesn't bother me that people find early eras of SC2 that interesting. I've been playing SC:BW since early 2000s, but even when WoL came out, I never felt as excited by professional SC2 gameplays as I have in the past few years. I don't remember any zerg army composed of 5-6 different unit types, not including spore crawlers, back in 2014. My only disappointment is that we lost so many great protoss, and PvT seems a bit lopsided, and Protoss overall could use more high-level tools. Otherwise, the current era of SC2 is rather amazing.
Arguing with the usage of more different unit types is a very bad argument because that's largely (probably solely) due to the game changing. Just take TvZ for example. Ghosts were shit and Liberators didn't exist in HotS, therefore there was nothing to tech to past MMMM and thus Zerg didn't need to diversify their responses either.
And what do you think ushered the changes? I'm not just talking about a new game expansion being added. Look at early LotV days compared to today. If players could make fewer types of units work at the highest level, why would they incorporate more? That would do more harm than good, because it's better to manage a simpler army that you can manage, than to make an unnecessarily complex army, where your vipers are just flying into marines, and infestors are moving into their death/EMPs for no good reason. They incorporated more because the next level of effective play demanded it, which also required them to up their mechanical skills in order to be able to manage their more complex armies. It's a very good argument.
Maps got bigger. Like way bigger, with easy to take 4th, 5th and further bases. Of course you aren't making 15 infestors, broodlords, vipers, corruptors, ultras and a spore forest on Lerilak Crest. And spellcasters got buffed (ghosts are the obvious ones, infestors got changed to be able to fungal while burrowed at some point...)
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and some of the competitors couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had another 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
I don't see how any of this has anything to do with what I said. The game would feel just as hard for a 2010 player playing against a 2010 player as it would a 2024 player against a 2024. It doesn't matter if the game is faster, more figured out or whatever adjective you want to use. If we took a 2024 pro and put them against a 2024 rando, that game would feel very easy to the pro despite their opponent's having access to all the years of knowledge. Remember, it's a 1v1 sport. When you play a 1v1 sport (except for golf where you and others play against the course), the game is only as hard as your opponent is skilled relative to you.
If difficulty of a win is what measures the greatness of a win, I would agree with you. Doesn't bother me that people find early eras of SC2 that interesting. I've been playing SC:BW since early 2000s, but even when WoL came out, I never felt as excited by professional SC2 gameplays as I have in the past few years. I don't remember any zerg army composed of 5-6 different unit types, not including spore crawlers, back in 2014. My only disappointment is that we lost so many great protoss, and PvT seems a bit lopsided, and Protoss overall could use more high-level tools. Otherwise, the current era of SC2 is rather amazing.
Arguing with the usage of more different unit types is a very bad argument because that's largely (probably solely) due to the game changing. Just take TvZ for example. Ghosts were shit and Liberators didn't exist in HotS, therefore there was nothing to tech to past MMMM and thus Zerg didn't need to diversify their responses either.
And what do you think ushered the changes? I'm not just talking about a new game expansion being added. Look at early LotV days compared to today. If players could make fewer types of units work at the highest level, why would they incorporate more? That would do more harm than good, because it's better to manage a simpler army that you can manage, than to make an unnecessarily complex army, where your vipers are just flying into marines, and infestors are moving into their death/EMPs for no good reason. They incorporated more because the next level of effective play demanded it, which also required them to up their mechanical skills in order to be able to manage their more complex armies. It's a very good argument.
Maps got bigger. Like way bigger, with easy to take 4th, 5th and further bases. Of course you aren't making 15 infestors, broodlords, vipers, corruptors, ultras and a spore forest on Lerilak Crest. And spellcasters got buffed (ghosts are the obvious ones, infestors got changed to be able to fungal while burrowed at some point...)
Doesn't rebut my point, and only adds to it. It requires better mechanics to control more complex armies. Sneaking around those infestors underground, while you've also to control vipers, lings, banes, and hydras/corruptors is something basically only one player is currently making look easy. That's how hard it is.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac.
Life was the best zerg of 2015 and one game away from winning back to back Blizzcons. He was hardly being eclipsed by other zergs.
Well, I specified "beginning to be eclipsed." Meaning, he was still the apparent best, but it was by no means a wide margin. Hydra, soO, Solar, and Dark were making serious gains toward the end of 2015 and start of 2016.
Edit: Agh...Cross all of that out even. I already made it a point earlier that Life's wins were highly suspect because of his conduct. Meaning, they could've been match-fixed. How can anyone be certain that they weren't?
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac.
Life was the best zerg of 2015 and one game away from winning back to back Blizzcons. He was hardly being eclipsed by other zergs.
Well, I specified "beginning to be eclipsed." Meaning, he was still the apparent best, but it was by no means a wide margin. Hydra, soO, Solar, and Dark were making serious gains toward the end of 2015 and start of 2016.
Edit: Agh...Cross all of that out even. I already made it a point earlier that Life's wins were highly suspect because of his conduct. Meaning, they could've been match-fixed. How can anyone be certain that they weren't?
Unlike throwing a win being match fixed requires both parties to participate. You're accusing not only his final opponent(s) but also people he played throughout his brackets. That seems unlikely.
On March 02 2024 00:52 LeFaucheurishere wrote: [quote]
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac.
Life was the best zerg of 2015 and one game away from winning back to back Blizzcons. He was hardly being eclipsed by other zergs.
Well, I specified "beginning to be eclipsed." Meaning, he was still the apparent best, but it was by no means a wide margin. Hydra, soO, Solar, and Dark were making serious gains toward the end of 2015 and start of 2016.
Edit: Agh...Cross all of that out even. I already made it a point earlier that Life's wins were highly suspect because of his conduct. Meaning, they could've been match-fixed. How can anyone be certain that they weren't?
Unlike throwing a win being match fixed requires both parties to participate. You're accusing not only his final opponent(s) but also people he played throughout his brackets. That seems unlikely.
You're misusing the word "accusing." Unlikely or not, he drew a curtain of uncertainty around his results due to his scandal. He played against, and "defeated" countless players; to say I'm accusing all of them is absurd.
While you brought up a lot of good points there, it's worth noting that Maru lost most of those matches you mentioned in semifinals and finals. When Rogue gets eliminated, it's often really early in the tournament, like group stages. It's the quieter way of exiting, doesn't make dramatic headlines like "Maru got reversed swept by Reynor and failed to reach finals", but it's hard to say a ro.16 exit is better than a semifinal appearance.
To copy from my previous comments:
Rogue: 11 premiere champions, 1 second place, 8 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. Maru: 15 premiere champions, 11 second place, 20 semifinal finish. 0 World champion
Rogue has insane final winrate but he has less than half of finals or ro.4 appearance than Maru. Maru is an absurdly consistent top 4 finisher for his long career. The only knock against him really is that either by luck or his own fault, he could never get it together for once in a WC tier tournament. While Rogue definitely made best use of his less consistent "good days" on the biggest stages.
Also, for comparison: Serral: 25 champions, 12 second place, 10 semifinal finish. 3 World champion. If you discount the region-lock EU tournaments entirely, Serral still has: 16 champions, 7 second place, 7 semifinal finish in 5 years span.
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac.
Life was the best zerg of 2015 and one game away from winning back to back Blizzcons. He was hardly being eclipsed by other zergs.
Well, I specified "beginning to be eclipsed." Meaning, he was still the apparent best, but it was by no means a wide margin. Hydra, soO, Solar, and Dark were making serious gains toward the end of 2015 and start of 2016.
Edit: Agh...Cross all of that out even. I already made it a point earlier that Life's wins were highly suspect because of his conduct. Meaning, they could've been match-fixed. How can anyone be certain that they weren't?
Hydra?? How was Hydra even close to Life? Just admit you weren't watching during that time period.
On March 02 2024 00:52 LeFaucheurishere wrote: [quote]
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac.
Life was the best zerg of 2015 and one game away from winning back to back Blizzcons. He was hardly being eclipsed by other zergs.
Well, I specified "beginning to be eclipsed." Meaning, he was still the apparent best, but it was by no means a wide margin. Hydra, soO, Solar, and Dark were making serious gains toward the end of 2015 and start of 2016.
Edit: Agh...Cross all of that out even. I already made it a point earlier that Life's wins were highly suspect because of his conduct. Meaning, they could've been match-fixed. How can anyone be certain that they weren't?
Hydra?? How was Hydra even close to Life? Just admit you weren't watching during that time period.
You're so desperate to poke any hole you can find, you're not even willing to considerate the thrust of the argument. Whatever.
On March 02 2024 03:32 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
You're not blowing my mind, because this is the argument that had been brought up before.
Here's what that might blow yours. SC2 is a very recent invention. It isn't like physical sports, which had been established for many decades, and where it was largely peak-condition adults competing against other peak-condition adults. They were individuals who had fully realized their physical potential based on their contemporary knowledge of training and their sport. SC2, and esports in general, between 2010-2016 was rapidly evolving, and some of the competitors couldn't even legally drive. Their brains had another 10 years left to fully develop. The rapid evolution of the game also means that a lot of crazy builds and ideas could "work," when objectively they were bad strategies. But listen, if any of these players were clear outlier for multiple years, then that's another thing, but none of them had this kind of broken-level consistent domination to speculate that they'd continue to be outliers much later on post-2016.
If you think that level of competition in the early 2010s is so interesting and carries that much weight, then fine, whatever. Everybody is allowed their own arbitrary qualifiers of greatness. I just don't think this is a particularly interesting period of competition.
I don't see how any of this has anything to do with what I said. The game would feel just as hard for a 2010 player playing against a 2010 player as it would a 2024 player against a 2024. It doesn't matter if the game is faster, more figured out or whatever adjective you want to use. If we took a 2024 pro and put them against a 2024 rando, that game would feel very easy to the pro despite their opponent's having access to all the years of knowledge. Remember, it's a 1v1 sport. When you play a 1v1 sport (except for golf where you and others play against the course), the game is only as hard as your opponent is skilled relative to you.
If difficulty of a win is what measures the greatness of a win, I would agree with you. Doesn't bother me that people find early eras of SC2 that interesting. I've been playing SC:BW since early 2000s, but even when WoL came out, I never felt as excited by professional SC2 gameplays as I have in the past few years. I don't remember any zerg army composed of 5-6 different unit types, not including spore crawlers, back in 2014. My only disappointment is that we lost so many great protoss, and PvT seems a bit lopsided, and Protoss overall could use more high-level tools. Otherwise, the current era of SC2 is rather amazing.
Arguing with the usage of more different unit types is a very bad argument because that's largely (probably solely) due to the game changing. Just take TvZ for example. Ghosts were shit and Liberators didn't exist in HotS, therefore there was nothing to tech to past MMMM and thus Zerg didn't need to diversify their responses either.
And what do you think ushered the changes? I'm not just talking about a new game expansion being added. Look at early LotV days compared to today. If players could make fewer types of units work at the highest level, why would they incorporate more? That would do more harm than good, because it's better to manage a simpler army that you can manage, than to make an unnecessarily complex army, where your vipers are just flying into marines, and infestors are moving into their death/EMPs for no good reason. They incorporated more because the next level of effective play demanded it, which also required them to up their mechanical skills in order to be able to manage their more complex armies. It's a very good argument.
In early LotV players were already using just as complex army compositions as they do now though. Here for example within a 5 min search I found a game in which almost every unit type was used (from the Zerg side Ling Bane Infestor Viper Queen Corruptor Broodlord Ultra being out at the same time)
In HotS it just didn't make sense to play in such a way
On February 29 2024 10:38 Perceivere wrote: There is no telling whether Life's wins were also match-fixed. That alone should exclude him from any list.
Putting children who never played LotV on a GOAT list is a bit comical to me. It's well known in chess that players don't reach their plateau until at least their early twenties, and more typically their late twenties. Not only was the game in its juvenile state, the skill levels of players and their mental states were also in the juvenile states. I find it all just too absurd. One can argue that the rapid-pace SC2 game is different from classical chess, but Hikaru Nakamura shows that even in your thirties you can be the top dog of 1-min bullet chess.
There is no telling if Life or MVP's peaks would be significantly higher/lower than the peak of the current pool of players. Remember that after MVP had all of his success he petered off into the middle of the pack. His plateau was such that he just couldn't keep up with the front of the pack, and the ever rising skill floor. Or, perhaps HotS did him in, in which case the lack of ability to adjust is a mark against him. True greats should excel at adapting.
I mean, I get that you're pressed to include kids, because the life expectancy of SC2 seems closer than the farthest horizon, and a good chunk of players had left the game long ago. Still, meh...Comparing WoL or Hots to current level of play is like comparing high school league to major league baseball. I don't care what children accomplished in high school. This is just silly. No WoL-HotS-exclusive players should be anywhere near the top5, unless they were far and away dominant for their entire career, which none of these kids was.
Mvp couldn't keep up because of crippling injury that rendered him unable to even practice.
PLEASE learn the history and circumstances of a player before trying to speak on their career with authority.
Authority? I'm not the one writing articles.
I don't buy the injury excuse. How ever he got injured is on him. Pros are responsible for their own health, and not driving themselves over the brink of over-extension. Overtraining injuries also happen in sports, where set back is even worse on their cardio conditioning. I don't know how much less severe it is in progaming, but each time I took a long hiatus from laddering, it didn't take long to return to my prior form, but I'm not a pro. Either way, it was his responsibility to take care of his wrist.
Wrist was a minor issue compared to his neck/spine. His wrist pain was mostly coming from nerves in his neck. Seriously, his neck was real messed up, nerve/spinal damage kind of deal. He described the difficulty in gripping the mouse properly.
You regained your prior form quickly? Good for you. At the pro level at the time, your prior form wasn't enough and the level was always going up. Dozens of players playing ten hours a day. If you're injured and can only play four? Guess what, you're falling behind every single day. I guess technically he did plateau but framing it as a skill issue that he couldn't keep up or adapt to HotS is ridiculous. He was doing great in the first few months of HotS.
Sorry if I come off as a little caustic but as someone who was there for all that stuff, the amount of misinformation about older SC2 stuff I've seen since this series began has been crazy.
MVP was also playing without sound to be able to hear his mouse clicks, because he literally couldn't tell by his own body. But the guy you are responding to is right. If MVP was really such a gosu gamer that his skill would translate until today. Well then it sounds to me, better to sacrifice winning in the then, in exchange for continuing to win throughout a long career. Not only for his body, but it would also translate into more wins in the end. That is if his skill could actually translate until today, which I do not think is the case at all.
On February 29 2024 05:07 ejozl wrote: Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
On February 28 2024 08:30 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 04:08 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:48 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:01 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:32 WombaT wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:03 Pandain wrote: [quote]
But this doesn't even mean that much to me because a huge chunk of rogues prime took place during the pandemic, when every tournament was online for like a year and a half. Why are we excluding that? And the offline only stat maybe has more value pre 2018 or so, but major international online tournaments are pretty much the bedrock of modern SC2 for the past six five years or so. Again, weird to exclude.
And I suppose for whatever it's worth maybe you can't say Rogue had bad ZVP considering his offline results. But I'm definitely never going to call someone "the best ZvP of all time" who literally has sub 50% win rates against the best toss players overall.
Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is 72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8(77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 01:03 Balnazza wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so, Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guy seems really nice.
Stephano has no aura, I don't know what you are talking about. He was the best foreigner at the time but at no point was him considered clear cut best player or best Zerg in the world. He could hang around with top Korean players, that's the about the highest praised you could say about a foreigner at the time.
You also don't seem to understand the amount of damage Life caused for Korean SC2 pro scene. What he did was probably not that terrible on paper from outsider perspective(fixing a couple maps in inconsequential matches), but the outcome of it tipped the scale and eventually caused or at least greatly accelerate the collapse of SC2 pro scene in Korea. There's a reason why everyone in Korea hates Life with a passion.
If you make a list of "the most gifted players in SC2 history", then Life could probably gets a nod. But you won't find him on any serious GOAT list.
It doesn't matter what you call it, gifted, best or greatest. I don't mind that Mizen is not putting Life on the list, it depends how you look at it. If it is an award, then probably Life shouldn't be on the list. I wouldn't want Life to receive a medal for his GOATness as an ex. But if you look at it as an historian, then it is extremely disingenious to not include him. If you look at one of the greatest military leaders in history, then you get a guy who made piles of skulls for his enemies to see, this does not change the fact that he was the greatest military leader.
On February 29 2024 05:07 ejozl wrote: Rogue has this crazy bo7 record. But how do the stats look, if we just look at every finals? ex. TaeJa has incredible winrate in finals, but many were probably bo5's, I'd be interested to see this.
On February 28 2024 08:30 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 04:08 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:48 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 01:01 Nasigil wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:32 WombaT wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:13 Fango wrote: [quote] Because none of Rogue's championships were in the online era, except one GSL that was offline anyway. His legendary run was 2017-18, he then won the 2020 WC and GSLs in 19, 20, 21, and 22.
You can read in the article that Rogue had an almost Serral -like winrate Vs top protoss players offline. Which accounts for almost every relavent event. Even adjusting for including online (which includes mostly irrelevant tournaments) his winrate is still 66% from 2017 onwards against protoss.
I don't know where you're getting this idea of sub-50% from.
I’ve been noodling away on Aligulac, bemoaning my lack of a desktop PC in lieu of a phone! I’m unsure where 50% is coming from :S
Anyway picking an arbitrary cutoff, January 1st 2017, offline only, South Korean opposition:
Serral is [i]72–35[\i] (67.29%) in games and 27–8 (77.14%) in matches.
Rogue is 147–76(65.92%) in games and 52–21(71.23%) in matches.
Bear in mind that Serral is only playing Korean Toss players good enough to make the big offline events, where Rogue has more opportunity to play the lesser Korean Toss in early GSL rounds. Also, as per my previous stat dump, the Covid-induced offline premier period really makes it difficult to filter easily to do a direct Premier tournament comparison.
Filtering for offline online cuts out some big, big online tournaments, but dropping the filter introduces a bunch of way less prestigious tournaments.
Even on that data, with the aforementioned caveats Serral is still ahead, and I’d wager he’d be even further ahead if we’re counting premier online tournaments.
Rogue’s numbers bear out that he is a ZvP monster, just Serral is [i]the ZvP monster.
I just hope someone reads this and my previous stats dump as my god trying to do this on a phone is tortuous :p
Who are these korean protoss players that Rogue is facing offline which aren't good enough to make the big offline events? That was maybe a thing in the Kespa era but nowadays korean Protoss players that are still active are able to make the big offline events. Creator and Zoun are probably the 'worst' ones in recent years and Serral was facing both in offline events.
Ever heard of legendary Korean Protoss players like Hurricane, Patience, Super, Yeri, JYP, Dandy, Billowy, YB?
Just from some quick search on Aligulac with filters of offline Korean Protoss Rogue has played against since 2017
Ah, I see I forgot GSL qualifiers are offline and there are some no-names in there. Hurricane though when he still played, faced and beat Serral at IEM Katowice (2019?) so he's not a good example
There are people thinking Serral's 90 offline matches against Korean Protoss is not enough sample size, and there are people thinking Hurricane's one bo3 win over Serral is enough sample size.
ssmple size for what? Like Fango said, it was just a comment about how Hurricane doesn't deserve to be listed among the other players as some throwaway player as he was pretty legit (Patience probably doesn't either he made a HSC finals)
Patience defeated Zest to win that HSC, I know because I am a Patience fanboi.
On February 27 2024 18:52 RPR_Tempest wrote: Agreed that Rogue might have the all-time greatest career, but isn't the all-time greatest player.
Apart from the Bo7 thing, he felt like a guy that was real good and just happened to win. He never felt, like, above the rest of the pack. I think the biggest knock against Rogue's GOAT case is that there was never any point in his career that he felt like the best player in the world. The guy you point to and say "He's favoured against anybody." Just a really weird lack of aura most likely caused by his lack of consistency.
I think he was the favourite after winning the GSL to win the World Championsship and he did. I don't really know if aura counts for anything, what if everyone is just wrong about a person? For instance, many called this guy a patch zerg, abuser, or simply lucky. But being the most consistent player in bo7's means that this is just all bullshit. Stephano had the aura, but how much did he really win. I dno, I just think many people hated Rogue, because they did not understand him, he's a super hard worker and he is obviously intelligent.
On February 28 2024 01:03 Balnazza wrote:
On February 28 2024 00:45 Regisko wrote: I can't accept any result except of Life being top-3 (probably 2nd), and Serral being outside top-3.
Then you can skip the rest of this list. Not only did Mizenhauer on multiple occasion state that Life won't be on it, but there is a 100% guarantee that Serral will atleast be in the Top 2. Even if you somehow think he isn't in the Top 3, not putting him in the Top 10 would be almost as ridiculous as thinking a convicted cheater should even be in the discussion of being the GREATEST (not best) of All Time.
Does greatest mean that you have to be virtuous? if so we Fruitdealer can be the GOAT for winning for his family, or Duckdeok, because that guys seems really nice.
Yeah, but when your greatest achievement is stealing from your fellow pros by accelerating the death of proleague and committing the equivalent of a federal crime (gambling is illegal in Korea), you're not lacking in virtue, you're just a piece of shit and the sc2 community would have been better off if he never played.
Small additions: 1)For those who think "Life didn't do any damage!" the reminder that the Court itself explained that they rate the damage he caused the scene higher than his status as a minor. A freakin' Court in in Esports-Mekka South Korea said "bro, you fucked up". 2)Not sure how Kespa handles these kind of things, but another reminder that Life is not holding a World Championship Title anymore. Blizzard revoked his win. Which tbh makes me wonder if MMA actually should be considered a World Champion? I know athletes usually don't flaunt medals/wins they got like this, but just for statistic sakes it is an interesting question.
Here Blizzard leaves in the 2007 Blizzcon champion Savior. So Life is out, but Savior is in, seems pretty strange and they probably only removed Life due to pressure. In the end it doesn't matter what they say, or even what the court says, I can still disagree with it. Like I can disagree with having gambling be illegal in S-Korea. It's illegal to smoke marijuana most places, but at least in the western world, people don't really care about it. Law does not always allign with ethics, which makes sense because you change laws over time. IEM also chooses to keep Yoda as a champion, which imo is a good thing. Also if you wipe away history then you also wipe away the lessons of history.
On March 02 2024 01:52 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac.
Life was the best zerg of 2015 and one game away from winning back to back Blizzcons. He was hardly being eclipsed by other zergs.
Well, I specified "beginning to be eclipsed." Meaning, he was still the apparent best, but it was by no means a wide margin. Hydra, soO, Solar, and Dark were making serious gains toward the end of 2015 and start of 2016.
Edit: Agh...Cross all of that out even. I already made it a point earlier that Life's wins were highly suspect because of his conduct. Meaning, they could've been match-fixed. How can anyone be certain that they weren't?
Unlike throwing a win being match fixed requires both parties to participate. You're accusing not only his final opponent(s) but also people he played throughout his brackets. That seems unlikely.
You're misusing the word "accusing." Unlikely or not, he drew a curtain of uncertainty around his results due to his scandal. He played against, and "defeated" countless players; to say I'm accusing all of them is absurd.
That is exactly what you are doing. How can you be so ignorant of your own argument? For his wins to be questionable, his opponents need to also be corrupt. I'm surprised such a statement hasn't garnered you a ban. Your stupidity deserves one
Here Blizzard leaves in the 2007 Blizzcon champion Savior. So Life is out, but Savior is in, seems pretty strange and they probably only removed Life due to pressure. In the end it doesn't matter what they say, or even what the court says, I can still disagree with it. Like I can disagree with having gambling be illegal in S-Korea. It's illegal to smoke marijuana most places, but at least in the western world, people don't really care about it. Law does not always allign with ethics, which makes sense because you change laws over time. IEM also chooses to keep Yoda as a champion, which imo is a good thing. Also if you wipe away history then you also wipe away the lessons of history.
Blizzard vacated Saviors title aswell officially. And sure, you can disagree with anything and have an opinion, like anyone can. My opinion for example is that Life is an overrated player who owns his entire legacy to his matchfixing, otherwise you would know him today as the guy Serral constantly wipes the floor with. In the end though, this isn't about opinion, it is about facts. And the fact is that he is an idiot who threw games for money, causing gigantic damage. Done. Not much else to say about it.
As an addendum though: Life isn't "erased" from history, you can clearly see who won the 2014 World Championship Finals at BlizzCon - he just doesn't hold the title anymore. Which aligns with the roman system of "Damnatio Memoriae". This was a harsh punishment that could fell upon traitors, in which case they would get "erased" from public knowledge. Like their names would be carved out from stone plates and stuff. But the funny thing about the Damnatio Memoriae is, that we always know, 2000 years later, who it was about. Because the romans wanted it that way. Everyone should know who did something so bad their memory got "erased".
Was Life actually a minor when he threw the games? Looking at his birthday on Liquipedia (January 1997) and when he threw games (2015 onwards) it looks like he would have been 18. Maybe a minor in South Korea but not, say, America.
I will say it does strike me as very silly to believe that, if you take his accomplishments on face value (ignore matchfixing), Life at the very least does not outweigh Rain. You would be extremely extremely hard pressed to have found someone in 2015 when Rain retired to have believed he was a greater player than Life.
Damn it's really too bad that even though Life's WC win is revoked, he still beat Taeja, and we'll never have gotten to see Taeja potentially win a WC.
Giving the win to MMA also wouldn't quite make sense because then you could say we should look at Taeja vs MMA, but then what about the player Life beat before Taeja, what if they beat Taeja and advanced to the finals, etc.
But, at the least we can say that MMA got the highest placement that tournament, and Taeja and MMA's opponent got 2nd/3rd.
On March 03 2024 13:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Damn it's really too bad that even though Life's WC win is revoked, he still beat Taeja, and we'll never have gotten to see Taeja potentially win a WC.
Giving the win to MMA also wouldn't quite make sense because then you could say we should look at Taeja vs MMA, but then what about the player Life beat before Taeja, what if they beat Taeja and advanced to the finals, etc.
But, at the least we can say that MMA got the highest placement that tournament, and Taeja and MMA's opponent got 2nd/3rd.
I’m not a big fan of the next bloke or blokette being awarded the vacated title, given Life didn’t actually cheat to win it.
And in general trying to fix it and put justice in after the fact is fraught with problems too, as you’ve outlined. Plus even if you did come up with the perfect way to do it, x person was still denied the glory at the time, lifting that trophy and being able to go into upcoming tournaments being able to say they were the de facto World Champ.
It can get really farcical, one particular year of the Tour de France was so fraught with cheating that first it was Armstrong stripped of the win, then the person it dropped to (Jan Ullrich iirc), then he got found guilty of doping and was stripped and it given to the next one down. This continued over time to have it so that the 7th/8th original placer is now the Tour champ for that particular year. But really they aren’t because it starts being ridiculous. I might be misremembering facets of this but the vague principle still stands.
I don't understand what's there to talk so much about Life.
He was an extremely talented player, arguably one of the most talented ever to touch this game. Judging by how his rival Maru developed in LotV, no reason to doubt why Life wouldn't be as successful if he kept playing (a smarter and more aggressive Reynor is a good description, I think). But he matchfixed and participated in gambling, which is inexcusable in competitive Esports. He had terrible impact on the scene and was rightfully punished by it. You could still find his VODs on Youtube and his page on Liquipedia, so he's not really "erased" from history per se. We could have a civil discussion of how good Life could be if matchfix didn't happen, but that's for another thread, and no one will or should put a cheater on any GOAT list, plain and simple.
Can we just end the Life discussion and leave this thread to Rogue, a actual rightful GOAT contender?
A 13-1 bo7 record is bonkers. I love Rogue because we never know if we're gonna get a guy who bombs out in the ro32 or whether he locks in for a tournament and is untouchable.
By the way, how will Miz keep up the suspense once the second to last article is released? Everybody will know who #1 is once #2 is revealed, unless there is still something up his sleeves. Or will we get both at the same time, maybe in a single article?
(we need 20 more posts here to keep numbers steadily increasing across rankings..!)
On March 04 2024 17:10 Gilgamesh_ wrote: By the way, how will Miz keep up the suspense once the second to last article is released? Everybody will know who #1 is once #2 is revealed, unless there is still something up his sleeves. Or will we get both at the same time, maybe in a single article?
(we need 20 more posts here to keep numbers steadily increasing across rankings..!)
The sensible thing to do IMO would be to delay until both articles are written, and release them at the same time.
On March 02 2024 01:52 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac.
Life was the best zerg of 2015 and one game away from winning back to back Blizzcons. He was hardly being eclipsed by other zergs.
Well, I specified "beginning to be eclipsed." Meaning, he was still the apparent best, but it was by no means a wide margin. Hydra, soO, Solar, and Dark were making serious gains toward the end of 2015 and start of 2016.
Edit: Agh...Cross all of that out even. I already made it a point earlier that Life's wins were highly suspect because of his conduct. Meaning, they could've been match-fixed. How can anyone be certain that they weren't?
Unlike throwing a win being match fixed requires both parties to participate. You're accusing not only his final opponent(s) but also people he played throughout his brackets. That seems unlikely.
You're misusing the word "accusing." Unlikely or not, he drew a curtain of uncertainty around his results due to his scandal. He played against, and "defeated" countless players; to say I'm accusing all of them is absurd.
Think about the logic of paying both parties to fix a game of Starcraft. The only benefit(s) you'd be able to get from paying the winning party is being able to say "make sure to punish these specific mistakes", and technically also to make sure the match isn't already fixed in the opposite direction. If you consider how easy it is to make a game ending mistake in Starcraft you'll probably realize that no one would take twice the risk of getting found out, and also pay out twice the money just for that. A misclick or an untimely supply block can be enough.
On March 03 2024 22:55 Nasigil wrote: I don't understand what's there to talk so much about Life.
He was an extremely talented player, arguably one of the most talented ever to touch this game. Judging by how his rival Maru developed in LotV, no reason to doubt why Life wouldn't be as successful if he kept playing (a smarter and more aggressive Reynor is a good description, I think). But he matchfixed and participated in gambling, which is inexcusable in competitive Esports. He had terrible impact on the scene and was rightfully punished by it. You could still find his VODs on Youtube and his page on Liquipedia, so he's not really "erased" from history per se. We could have a civil discussion of how good Life could be if matchfix didn't happen, but that's for another thread, and no one will or should put a cheater on any GOAT list, plain and simple.
Can we just end the Life discussion and leave this thread to Rogue, a actual rightful GOAT contender?
Smarter? Doesn't seem particular smart to me given his decisions ...
On March 05 2024 23:47 tincer wrote: Ok, I'm posting this mainly to keep the record (each article more posts than the last). What to say about rogue? Dunno ... hope he comes back!
I hope so too...
Also wow, it's cool that each one gets longer! Hoping the next 2 get really long, it's probably safe to say so! Though it might be good if the #1 article doesn't come out too much longer than #2. Then most people might finish fighting in the #2 article xD
On March 05 2024 23:47 tincer wrote: Ok, I'm posting this mainly to keep the record (each article more posts than the last). What to say about rogue? Dunno ... hope he comes back!
I hope so too...
Also wow, it's cool that each one gets longer! Hoping the next 2 get really long, it's probably safe to say so! Though it might be good if the #1 article doesn't come out too much longer than #2. Then most people might finish fighting in the #2 article xD
You just need to post something controversial, like MSC was an awesome unit and should be brought back! Change my mind
To stay on topic: I love how Korean Zergs (mainly Dark and Rogue) are the bad boys of SC2.
Yeah I'm pretty sure that the final articles will be posted at the same time, since it's 99% guaranteed the two remaining players are Serral and Maru, so only posting #2 would spoil #1 immediately (sorry Dark fans).
As for Rogue, it's too bad he had to go to the military so soon, he might have prevented Maru from winning those 2 "online era" GSL, because he somehow finds a way to beat Maru even when isn't the favorite to do so
On March 06 2024 00:10 Poopi wrote: Yeah I'm pretty sure that the final articles will be posted at the same time, since it's 99% guaranteed the two remaining players are Serral and Maru, so only posting #2 would spoil #1 immediately (sorry Dark fans).
As for Rogue, it's too bad he had to go to the military so soon, he might have prevented Maru from winning those 2 "online era" GSL, because he somehow finds a way to beat Maru even when isn't the favorite to do so
Ah that'd be interesting!
But yeah, Rogue probably would have stopped Maru most or all of the time. And if Rogue was able to keep his record over Maru, and thus have a better GSL performance than Maru from 2019 onwards, then Rogue would be my #2 above Maru. He already was my #2, until Maru won more online GSLs, though now that I'm looking back, I don't really count those online GSLs as much, because the fact also is that part of why he won those is not because he overcame Rogue but because Rogue simply wasn't competing.
On March 06 2024 00:10 Poopi wrote: Yeah I'm pretty sure that the final articles will be posted at the same time, since it's 99% guaranteed the two remaining players are Serral and Maru, so only posting #2 would spoil #1 immediately (sorry Dark fans).
As for Rogue, it's too bad he had to go to the military so soon, he might have prevented Maru from winning those 2 "online era" GSL, because he somehow finds a way to beat Maru even when isn't the favorite to do so
Ah that'd be interesting!
But yeah, Rogue probably would have stopped Maru most or all of the time. And if Rogue was able to keep his record over Maru, and thus have a better GSL performance than Maru from 2019 onwards, then Rogue would be my #2 above Maru. He already was my #2, until Maru won more online GSLs, though now that I'm looking back, I don't really count those online GSLs as much, because the fact also is that part of why he won those is not because he overcame Rogue but because Rogue simply wasn't competing.
It's not only Rogue who stopped competing, you can extend this argument to Inno, Stats, TY, Rain, soO etc, (yeah some of them are back but they are not really back). GSL just got a lot weaker. So yes I don't count Maru's latest GSL that high either but by that logic Rogue's GSLs from 2019-2022 should also be worth less than Maru's GSLs in 2018
On March 06 2024 00:10 Poopi wrote: Yeah I'm pretty sure that the final articles will be posted at the same time, since it's 99% guaranteed the two remaining players are Serral and Maru, so only posting #2 would spoil #1 immediately (sorry Dark fans).
As for Rogue, it's too bad he had to go to the military so soon, he might have prevented Maru from winning those 2 "online era" GSL, because he somehow finds a way to beat Maru even when isn't the favorite to do so
Ah that'd be interesting!
But yeah, Rogue probably would have stopped Maru most or all of the time. And if Rogue was able to keep his record over Maru, and thus have a better GSL performance than Maru from 2019 onwards, then Rogue would be my #2 above Maru. He already was my #2, until Maru won more online GSLs, though now that I'm looking back, I don't really count those online GSLs as much, because the fact also is that part of why he won those is not because he overcame Rogue but because Rogue simply wasn't competing.
It's not only Rogue who stopped competing, you can extend this argument to Inno, Stats, TY, Rain, soO etc, (yeah some of them are back but they are not really back). GSL just got a lot weaker. So yes I don't count Maru's latest GSL that high either but by that logic Rogue's GSLs from 2019-2022 should also be worth less than Maru's GSLs in 2018
I think it's fair to say that every GSL got marginally less important from 2017-2022, and that with the recent prize pool shrink they are significantly less important now.
On March 01 2024 20:31 LeFaucheurishere wrote: Putting Maru in front of Rogue is an absolute shame. There is absolutely no way you can say Maru is higher in the GOAT ranking than Rogue. Outside of Korea, Maru's trophy case is literally empty, all he did was winning a wesg with 2 koreans in it in a vastly favored terran patch with ravens being absolutely op. In korea, he won easy GSLs when players started going to military and when the competition became weaker in korea and stronger in Europe.
All maru did in big international events is literally choking. Lost 3-4 against Life in Taipei 2015 ; Lost 3-4 against TY in wesg 2016 ; Lost 3-0 (!!!) when he was the overwhelming favorite at blizzcon 2018 against sos ; Reverse swept by Rogue at IEM katowice 2018 where he was, again, the overwhelming favorite ; Lost 3-2 AGAIN against Rogue in semis of kato 2020 ; Reverse swept by Reynor at kato 2021 ; Has literraly the EASIEST RUN in kato 2023 facing Ragnarok in semis and oliveira in finals and still manages to get destroyed 4-1; and got swept most recently 4-0 in finals by serral in 2024. The one and only finals he won at an international event is against Dark in 2017 and it wasn't flawless at all. "Yeah but he is still so dominant in korea !!" ? He won GSLs because the format allows preparation and is favored for terrans. If you take is GSL ST wins, in the span of 5-6 years of GSL ST he just won ONE.
At the same time Rogue is by far the most clutch and the most dominant player in premier tournaments in history. If we just take 2017, he already won more international tournaments than Maru, with IEM shangai and Blizzcon. He went undefeated in offline tournaments from september 2017 to april 2018 with a record of 12-0 ("but rogue isn't consistent") and managed to do what no one ever did in history, by winning Blizzcon and then Katowice. He has 2 iem Katowice, 1 blizzcon, 1 IEM shangai, undefeated in finals and never even went to game 7 in finals ; 13-1 in offline bo7s ; still has 4 GSLs and WON AGAINST MARU in GSL finals (completely dominated him).
Even if we take what many people view as one of Maru's greatest accomplishments, carrying Jin air in Proleague, it's not even that impressive. In 2015 Maru has a record of 27-15 (63%) where Rogue is at 26-14 (65%), and again, when it matters the most, Rogue is at 3-0 in ace matches and maru is at 3-2. Again, in finals against SKT, when it mattered the most, Rogue won his match against Dark while Maru lost against Dream. The only season where Maru is way above the others is 2016 and he didn't even play a single ace match.
Not to add that Maru, against the 2 real best players of all time, Rogue and serral, is at 25% (1-3) against serral in offline bo5+, and at 30% (3-7) against Rogue.
For me, esport and sport isn't about statistics, beauty or anything. It's about winning. And if we talk about winning, Maru is far, far, far below Rogue. He isn't even close. Maybe he plays well, he has an enjoyable playstyle, he is the only terran fans can support deep in tournaments, but this just doesn't change anything. Yes, he is a great player, and one of the greatest, but he is no way near Rogue's legacy.
Absolutely great post and agree with everything you mentioned
Maru accomplishment are highly overrated by his fans
What Maru did was literally the same what neeb did. They both completely dominate their “weaker” region during that specific time period. Both flame out or choke in international tournaments. Once in a while they would win an international tournament, for example, Maru winning Last Chance DH and Neeb winning Kepsa cup
The Maru article is gonna be great based on these comments lol. He won WESG for tons of money, won wcg, he won star leagues during the peak of kr sc2. Was a great proleague player etc etc.
It's not like the dude won nothing and the fans just prop him up for no reason.
At this point people are desperate enough to read proto-uralic texts to check whether ancient finns carved into some moss-covered nordic rocks a prophecy about serral being #1 in the great great GOAT ranking of 2024.
Miz please save us from this madness with the next article!
On March 07 2024 04:46 Gilgamesh_ wrote: At this point people are desperate enough to read proto-uralic texts to check whether ancient finns carved into some moss-covered nordic rocks a prophecy about serral being #1 in the great great GOAT ranking of 2024.
Miz please save us from this madness with the next article!
It was prophesied! Our GOAT from Finnland. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done! Deliver us from evil.
Great article. Very intelligent player with some of the greatest bo7 win-rate ever.
From a prize pool perspective, interesting to note that: -2012 had the highest prize pool of $4.3m, afterwards, there were ups and downs, but an overall downward trajectory -2018 was the small peak after 2012 with $3.6m, and it has been on constant decline ever since -2018 was also the 1st year that foreigners won more prize money than Koreans, and this would become the norm after -Of the $40m or so total payouts, 60% went to Koreans, while 40% went to foreigners; Zerg has the highest winnings at 37%, > Protoss at just over 31%, > Terran with the lowest 31%.
Also, I am slightly sad that no Protoss is ever in contention for GOAT, and no Protoss player will be on the top 5 of this list, either.
On March 08 2024 14:17 catplanetcatplanet wrote: I feel like Miz has the opportunity to do the funniest thing and never publish #2/#1. The suspense would keep tl.net alive for years to come
The last two articles are the longest yet. Fret not, we shall deliver!
On March 08 2024 14:17 catplanetcatplanet wrote: I feel like Miz has the opportunity to do the funniest thing and never publish #2/#1. The suspense would keep tl.net alive for years to come
The last two articles are the longest yet. Fret not, we shall deliver!
I hope #1 is a really sappy take by putting something like "The viewers" at the first place. Because without us, what would Starcraft be? Just a really daft, sappy, American sentimental take and then a 500 page thread civil war. After that, we close TL.net.
On March 08 2024 14:17 catplanetcatplanet wrote: I feel like Miz has the opportunity to do the funniest thing and never publish #2/#1. The suspense would keep tl.net alive for years to come
The last two articles are the longest yet. Fret not, we shall deliver!
I hope #1 is a really sappy take by putting something like "The viewers" at the first place. Because without us, what would Starcraft be? Just a really daft, sappy, American sentimental take and then a 500 page thread civil war. After that, we close TL.net.
This would actually be the most legendary incident in TL history. And it would be funnier if also made #2 only one of Maru/Serral.
On March 08 2024 14:17 catplanetcatplanet wrote: I feel like Miz has the opportunity to do the funniest thing and never publish #2/#1. The suspense would keep tl.net alive for years to come
The last two articles are the longest yet. Fret not, we shall deliver!
I hope #1 is a really sappy take by putting something like "The viewers" at the first place. Because without us, what would Starcraft be? Just a really daft, sappy, American sentimental take and then a 500 page thread civil war. After that, we close TL.net.
This would actually be the most legendary incident in TL history. And it would be funnier if also made #2 only one of Maru/Serral.
Yes, because obviously one/both of them would just never even place over Mvp in his prime. Mvp is the best player in the world, just disregard all of the counterarguments against that and argue that since he was good ten+ years ago we can imagine he'd be just as relatively good if all the reasons against that are invalidated.
On March 08 2024 14:17 catplanetcatplanet wrote: I feel like Miz has the opportunity to do the funniest thing and never publish #2/#1. The suspense would keep tl.net alive for years to come
The last two articles are the longest yet. Fret not, we shall deliver!
I hope #1 is a really sappy take by putting something like "The viewers" at the first place. Because without us, what would Starcraft be? Just a really daft, sappy, American sentimental take and then a 500 page thread civil war. After that, we close TL.net.
If we take two more weeks to write then we could actually do this for April Fools, then release the real articles after :D
On March 12 2024 23:10 matju wrote: Maybe Dark is 2 and Maru/Serral both 1? Just cant believe that Dark did not squeeze in to top10
Miz has implied on multiple occasions Dark is out. But he will make a lengthy blog explaining his reasonings after the list is finished, so there's that to look forward to.
On March 12 2024 23:10 matju wrote: Maybe Dark is 2 and Maru/Serral both 1? Just cant believe that Dark did not squeeze in to top10
Miz has implied on multiple occasions Dark is out. But he will make a lengthy blog explaining his reasonings after the list is finished, so there's that to look forward to.
Thanks for telling me how long the blog will be. I'll have to add a bunch of filler to meet your requirements
On March 12 2024 23:10 matju wrote: Maybe Dark is 2 and Maru/Serral both 1? Just cant believe that Dark did not squeeze in to top10
Miz has implied on multiple occasions Dark is out. But he will make a lengthy blog explaining his reasonings after the list is finished, so there's that to look forward to.
Thanks for telling me how long the blog will be. I'll have to add a bunch of filler to meet your requirements
I think it’s a reasonable assumption given how thorough your entries have been in this series, and you publicising that you’re going to do some kind of blog post covering near-misses and rationales that said posts can assumed to be somewhat in-depth.
Maybe my vibe detection is off today, that felt a bit snippy a response to what I read as ‘don’t give Miz shit, he’s got some supplementary stuff coming’
On March 12 2024 23:10 matju wrote: Maybe Dark is 2 and Maru/Serral both 1? Just cant believe that Dark did not squeeze in to top10
Miz has implied on multiple occasions Dark is out. But he will make a lengthy blog explaining his reasonings after the list is finished, so there's that to look forward to.
Thanks for telling me how long the blog will be. I'll have to add a bunch of filler to meet your requirements
I think it’s a reasonable assumption given how thorough your entries have been in this series, and you publicising that you’re going to do some kind of blog post covering near-misses and rationales that said posts can assumed to be somewhat in-depth.
Maybe my vibe detection is off today, that felt a bit snippy a response to what I read as ‘don’t give Miz shit, he’s got some supplementary stuff coming’
I think there's a two sentence answer that will appease most people.
On March 12 2024 23:10 matju wrote: Maybe Dark is 2 and Maru/Serral both 1? Just cant believe that Dark did not squeeze in to top10
Miz has implied on multiple occasions Dark is out. But he will make a lengthy blog explaining his reasonings after the list is finished, so there's that to look forward to.
Thanks for telling me how long the blog will be. I'll have to add a bunch of filler to meet your requirements
I think it’s a reasonable assumption given how thorough your entries have been in this series, and you publicising that you’re going to do some kind of blog post covering near-misses and rationales that said posts can assumed to be somewhat in-depth.
Maybe my vibe detection is off today, that felt a bit snippy a response to what I read as ‘don’t give Miz shit, he’s got some supplementary stuff coming’
I think there's a two sentence answer that will appease most people.
You’ve already precluded ‘After careful and multi-faceted consideration… We hereby anoint Mvp as the GOAT’ alas
On March 12 2024 23:10 matju wrote: Maybe Dark is 2 and Maru/Serral both 1? Just cant believe that Dark did not squeeze in to top10
Miz has implied on multiple occasions Dark is out. But he will make a lengthy blog explaining his reasonings after the list is finished, so there's that to look forward to.
Thanks for telling me how long the blog will be. I'll have to add a bunch of filler to meet your requirements
I think it’s a reasonable assumption given how thorough your entries have been in this series, and you publicising that you’re going to do some kind of blog post covering near-misses and rationales that said posts can assumed to be somewhat in-depth.
Maybe my vibe detection is off today, that felt a bit snippy a response to what I read as ‘don’t give Miz shit, he’s got some supplementary stuff coming’
I think there's a two sentence answer that will appease most people.
You’ve already precluded ‘After careful and multi-faceted consideration… We hereby anoint Mvp as the GOAT’ alas
Believe it or not, but the first question I was asked during my interview way back in 2016 was "is mvp the goat?".
On March 12 2024 23:10 matju wrote: Maybe Dark is 2 and Maru/Serral both 1? Just cant believe that Dark did not squeeze in to top10
Miz has implied on multiple occasions Dark is out. But he will make a lengthy blog explaining his reasonings after the list is finished, so there's that to look forward to.
Thanks for telling me how long the blog will be. I'll have to add a bunch of filler to meet your requirements
I think it’s a reasonable assumption given how thorough your entries have been in this series, and you publicising that you’re going to do some kind of blog post covering near-misses and rationales that said posts can assumed to be somewhat in-depth.
Maybe my vibe detection is off today, that felt a bit snippy a response to what I read as ‘don’t give Miz shit, he’s got some supplementary stuff coming’
I think there's a two sentence answer that will appease most people.
You’ve already precluded ‘After careful and multi-faceted consideration… We hereby anoint Mvp as the GOAT’ alas
Believe it or not, but the first question I was asked during my interview way back in 2016 was "is mvp the goat?".
Interview for the writing gig I’m presuming?
Whatever your answer was I’m glad you answered correctly, joshing aside this is a fantastic series and it’s not your sole fine work either
On March 12 2024 23:10 matju wrote: Maybe Dark is 2 and Maru/Serral both 1? Just cant believe that Dark did not squeeze in to top10
Miz has implied on multiple occasions Dark is out. But he will make a lengthy blog explaining his reasonings after the list is finished, so there's that to look forward to.
Thanks for telling me how long the blog will be. I'll have to add a bunch of filler to meet your requirements
I think it’s a reasonable assumption given how thorough your entries have been in this series, and you publicising that you’re going to do some kind of blog post covering near-misses and rationales that said posts can assumed to be somewhat in-depth.
Maybe my vibe detection is off today, that felt a bit snippy a response to what I read as ‘don’t give Miz shit, he’s got some supplementary stuff coming’
I think there's a two sentence answer that will appease most people.
You’ve already precluded ‘After careful and multi-faceted consideration… We hereby anoint Mvp as the GOAT’ alas
Believe it or not, but the first question I was asked during my interview way back in 2016 was "is mvp the goat?".
Interview for the writing gig I’m presuming?
Whatever your answer was I’m glad you answered correctly, joshing aside this is a fantastic series and it’s not your sole fine work either
I think everyone is assuming that it's going to be Maru at #2 and Serral at #1. It's not obvious to me that the positions won't be reversed based on 1) the criteria selected; and 2) Miz's willingness to take controversial positions that he believes are correct irrespective of community backlash. Not saying it's going to happen, just saying it's an interesting and real possibility.
One thing I didn't see in the criteria that is highly relevant in GOAT convos in other sports and games is the power of narratives and movements and stories, which have a very stubborn quality to them in the way they can overpower numbers and statistics. In the case of Maru, MVP, and Serral, they all have amazing narrative arcs: the child prodigy, the rags-to-riches story, and the foreigner who made the unthinkable feel inevitable. Rogue also has a zero to hero quality to him given the original run that propelled him to sustained greatness, but some of the ways in which he would win were so unappealing that in the end he feels like at best an anti-hero. Maru has the "choking" thing and MVP has the "injury-during-his-prime" thing that disrupt their narratives, whereas Serral's storyline is only really disrupted by never having won a GSL, which seems increasingly not very relevant.
Magnus Carlsen--arguably the Chess GOAT--abdicated the throne for a variety of reasons, but in particular he felt the classical chess format and the championship tournament structure doesn't do a very good job of determining the greatest player. I feel that way about SC2 for a lot of the same reasons. If Chess can evolve in how it's played after centuries, maybe SC2 can do so after a decade
On March 13 2024 03:25 rwala wrote: I think everyone is assuming that it's going to be Maru at #2 and Serral at #1. It's not obvious to me that the positions won't be reversed based on 1) the criteria selected; and 2) Miz's willingness to take controversial positions that he believes are correct irrespective of community backlash. Not saying it's going to happen, just saying it's an interesting and real possibility.
One thing I didn't see in the criteria that is highly relevant in GOAT convos in other sports and games is the power of narratives and movements and stories, which have a very stubborn quality to them in the way they can overpower numbers and statistics. In the case of Maru, MVP, and Serral, they all have amazing narrative arcs: the child prodigy, the rags-to-riches story, and the foreigner who made the unthinkable feel inevitable. Rogue also has a zero to hero quality to him given the original run that propelled him to sustained greatness, but some of the ways in which he would win were so unappealing that in the end he feels like at best an anti-hero. Maru has the "choking" thing and MVP has the "injury-during-his-prime" thing that disrupt their narratives, whereas Serral's storyline is only really disrupted by never having won a GSL, which seems increasingly not very relevant.
Magnus Carlsen--arguably the Chess GOAT--abdicated the throne for a variety of reasons, but in particular he felt the classical chess format and the championship tournament structure doesn't do a very good job of determining the greatest player. I feel that way about SC2 for a lot of the same reasons. If Chess can evolve in how it's played after centuries, maybe SC2 can do so after a decade
Narratives > Facts lost out on this one I suppose.
On March 14 2024 20:10 nimdil wrote: I wonder when will we get #2. It is over two weeks. Mvp and Rogue were separate by 8 days.
Which would make total sense for a simultaneous release.
If the interest is focused on order more than actual writing.
Well 8+8=16.
Rogue was published 16 days ago. So any moment now?
More than one moment, but less than a few thousand moments.
Let's break this up:
Few thousand is less than five thousand, otherwise it would be many thousand (obviously). So somewhere between 1000 - 5000. Lets take the middle A moment can be mere seconds or a small amount of minutes. Lets take a minute as a an average.
3000 minutes. An hour has passed already. A day has 1440 minutes. So has to be somewhere between now and 2940 minutes or about two days
On March 14 2024 20:10 nimdil wrote: I wonder when will we get #2. It is over two weeks. Mvp and Rogue were separate by 8 days.
Which would make total sense for a simultaneous release.
If the interest is focused on order more than actual writing.
Well 8+8=16.
Rogue was published 16 days ago. So any moment now?
More than one moment, but less than a few thousand moments.
Let's break this up:
Few thousand is less than five thousand, otherwise it would be many thousand (obviously). So somewhere between 1000 - 5000. Lets take the middle A moment can be mere seconds or a small amount of minutes. Lets take a minute as a an average.
3000 minutes. An hour has passed already. A day has 1440 minutes. So has to be somewhere between now and 2940 minutes or about two days
What we really need now is the definition of a "moment" and a ""few". A moment used to be an actual unit of measurement which was defined as 90 seconds. Modern usage of the word is more vague, but at least we have a starting point. "Few" is frustratingly more vague since nobody seems to know exactly what it means and it can change based on the context of the scales involved. Personally, when someone says "a few thousand" I take it to mean more than three thousand, but less than ten thousand. So, my interpretation of Miz's post is that the next article will be out in less than 10 thousand intervals of 90 seconds, which would be less than 11 days.
On March 15 2024 12:20 Kitai wrote: What we really need now is the definition of a "moment" and a ""few". A moment used to be an actual unit of measurement which was defined as 90 seconds. Modern usage of the word is more vague, but at least we have a starting point. "Few" is frustratingly more vague since nobody seems to know exactly what it means and it can change based on the context of the scales involved. Personally, when someone says "a few thousand" I take it to mean more than three thousand, but less than ten thousand. So, my interpretation of Miz's post is that the next article will be out in less than 10 thousand intervals of 90 seconds, which would be less than 11 days.
I like my calculation better on the sole reason that the timeframe is shorter
Here's my theory. Miz has Maru at #1, but Serral 4:0 Maru in recent Katowice finals threw a wrench into the writing process. He delayed the last two articles because he wanted to articulate in more details to further strengthen his argument why Maru is still better despite the lopsided h2h record against Serral and having zero world champion titles.
If Maru won the recent Katowice, the Maru > Serral opinion will be a much easier argument and we probably have already seen the final two articles by now.
On March 16 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Here's my theory. Miz has Maru at #1, but Serral 4:0 Maru in recent Katowice finals threw a wrench into the writing process. He delayed the last two articles because he wanted to articulate in more details to further strengthen his argument why Maru is still better despite the lopsided h2h record against Serral and having zero world champion titles.
If Maru won the recent Katowice, the Maru > Serral opinion will be a much easier argument and we probably have already seen the final two articles by now.
It's almost funny that people think that we are writing these on the fly while also doing previews/recaps/stuff for other sites.
On March 16 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Here's my theory. Miz has Maru at #1, but Serral 4:0 Maru in recent Katowice finals threw a wrench into the writing process. He delayed the last two articles because he wanted to articulate in more details to further strengthen his argument why Maru is still better despite the lopsided h2h record against Serral and having zero world champion titles.
If Maru won the recent Katowice, the Maru > Serral opinion will be a much easier argument and we probably have already seen the final two articles by now.
It's almost funny that people think that we are writing these on the fly while also doing previews/recaps/stuff for other sites.
It happens when an highly anticipated series of articles comes out with unusually long intervals between them. People's imagination runs wild when they are waiting.
On March 16 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Here's my theory. Miz has Maru at #1, but Serral 4:0 Maru in recent Katowice finals threw a wrench into the writing process. He delayed the last two articles because he wanted to articulate in more details to further strengthen his argument why Maru is still better despite the lopsided h2h record against Serral and having zero world champion titles.
If Maru won the recent Katowice, the Maru > Serral opinion will be a much easier argument and we probably have already seen the final two articles by now.
It's almost funny that people think that we are writing these on the fly while also doing previews/recaps/stuff for other sites.
It happens when an highly anticipated series of articles comes out with unusually long intervals between them. People's imagination runs wild when they are waiting.
Usually the answer is a lot of editing. All ten drafts were done prior to any of them being released, but I think Wax and I streamlined the process a lot as we went. Formatting wise, I think we made a lot of progress across the series.
On March 16 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Here's my theory. Miz has Maru at #1, but Serral 4:0 Maru in recent Katowice finals threw a wrench into the writing process. He delayed the last two articles because he wanted to articulate in more details to further strengthen his argument why Maru is still better despite the lopsided h2h record against Serral and having zero world champion titles.
If Maru won the recent Katowice, the Maru > Serral opinion will be a much easier argument and we probably have already seen the final two articles by now.
It's almost funny that people think that we are writing these on the fly while also doing previews/recaps/stuff for other sites.
It happens when an highly anticipated series of articles comes out with unusually long intervals between them. People's imagination runs wild when they are waiting.
Usually the answer is a lot of editing. All ten drafts were done prior to any of them being released, but I think Wax and I streamlined the process a lot as we went. Formatting wise, I think we made a lot of progress across the series.
This is so interesting. When did work/research on this begin?
On March 16 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Here's my theory. Miz has Maru at #1, but Serral 4:0 Maru in recent Katowice finals threw a wrench into the writing process. He delayed the last two articles because he wanted to articulate in more details to further strengthen his argument why Maru is still better despite the lopsided h2h record against Serral and having zero world champion titles.
If Maru won the recent Katowice, the Maru > Serral opinion will be a much easier argument and we probably have already seen the final two articles by now.
It's almost funny that people think that we are writing these on the fly while also doing previews/recaps/stuff for other sites.
It happens when an highly anticipated series of articles comes out with unusually long intervals between them. People's imagination runs wild when they are waiting.
Usually the answer is a lot of editing. All ten drafts were done prior to any of them being released, but I think Wax and I streamlined the process a lot as we went. Formatting wise, I think we made a lot of progress across the series.
This is so interesting. When did work/research on this begin?
On March 16 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Here's my theory. Miz has Maru at #1, but Serral 4:0 Maru in recent Katowice finals threw a wrench into the writing process. He delayed the last two articles because he wanted to articulate in more details to further strengthen his argument why Maru is still better despite the lopsided h2h record against Serral and having zero world champion titles.
If Maru won the recent Katowice, the Maru > Serral opinion will be a much easier argument and we probably have already seen the final two articles by now.
It's almost funny that people think that we are writing these on the fly while also doing previews/recaps/stuff for other sites.
It happens when an highly anticipated series of articles comes out with unusually long intervals between them. People's imagination runs wild when they are waiting.
Usually the answer is a lot of editing. All ten drafts were done prior to any of them being released, but I think Wax and I streamlined the process a lot as we went. Formatting wise, I think we made a lot of progress across the series.
This is so interesting. When did work/research on this begin?
About a year ago.
Just wanted to log in and say you're doing great work man. You definitely follow SC2 history much more closely and longer than some fanboys who only watch recent games and are easily influenced by biased casters.
On March 02 2024 00:52 LeFaucheurishere wrote: [quote]
But then again, there are premier tournaments and "premier tournaments". In my opinion, you can't compare cheap premier tournaments that Maru won that are onlines such as king of battles or DH last chance and actual offline tournaments such as IEM shangai or GSL ST. Moreover, the ping issues are a real problem with online tournaments.
If we only take premier offline tournaments :
Maru has : 1 OSL ; 1 SSL; 7 GSL ; 1 GSL ST ; 1 WESG for a total of 11 premier offline tournaments with only one international (and the weakest).
Rogue has : 4 GSL (and not semi online GSLs) ; 2 GSL ST ; 1 IEM shangai ; 2 IEM katowice and 1 blizzcon for a total of 10 premier offline tournaments, 4 international titles and 3 world championships.
This is clearly not the same weight. Not even to talk about the fact that Maru ended up winning a lot of GSLs after Rogue's retirement and after most of the korean scene retired (Zest Trap Innovation Rogue TY etc.)
Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
I don't agree, if Nestea just hit a level of play that was demonstrably shown to be the peak of SC2, and no one since even came close. Then he would be in the fore for the claim of GOAT, right?
Here Blizzard leaves in the 2007 Blizzcon champion Savior. So Life is out, but Savior is in, seems pretty strange and they probably only removed Life due to pressure. In the end it doesn't matter what they say, or even what the court says, I can still disagree with it. Like I can disagree with having gambling be illegal in S-Korea. It's illegal to smoke marijuana most places, but at least in the western world, people don't really care about it. Law does not always allign with ethics, which makes sense because you change laws over time. IEM also chooses to keep Yoda as a champion, which imo is a good thing. Also if you wipe away history then you also wipe away the lessons of history.
Blizzard vacated Saviors title aswell officially. And sure, you can disagree with anything and have an opinion, like anyone can. My opinion for example is that Life is an overrated player who owns his entire legacy to his matchfixing, otherwise you would know him today as the guy Serral constantly wipes the floor with. In the end though, this isn't about opinion, it is about facts. And the fact is that he is an idiot who threw games for money, causing gigantic damage. Done. Not much else to say about it.
As an addendum though: Life isn't "erased" from history, you can clearly see who won the 2014 World Championship Finals at BlizzCon - he just doesn't hold the title anymore. Which aligns with the roman system of "Damnatio Memoriae". This was a harsh punishment that could fell upon traitors, in which case they would get "erased" from public knowledge. Like their names would be carved out from stone plates and stuff. But the funny thing about the Damnatio Memoriae is, that we always know, 2000 years later, who it was about. Because the romans wanted it that way. Everyone should know who did something so bad their memory got "erased".
You can form opinions based on facts. Your statement about him being an idiot harming the scene, is your opinion. I didn't know about this "Damnatio Memoriae," but it sounds to me paradoxical to erase a name from history, so that he would be remembered. And I doubt that is what ppl are trying to do with Life.
On March 02 2024 01:52 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] Rogue has the WC cups over Maru, Maru has the Starleague wins during the Kespa era over Rogue which were more difficult to win than any tournament Rogue won. Discounting Maru's latest GSL wins seems weird considering Rogue won GSLs in 2021 and 2022 when they were also way easier to win than during 2018
If you compare Marus run through OSL and Rogues through Katowice 2020 - are you seriously saying Marus run was clearly so much harder that you put that OSL far above Katowice? Feels like Rogue had to atleast win against double the amount of S-class players compared to Maru, who actually had a pretty easy run until the semifinals (and then finished impressive against Inno and Rain ofc).
It's not only about the specific path of players you faced but also about the general field of players. The problem nowadays is that the gap between the top players and the rest is so large that someone like Dark can still on a bad day beat everyone except like Serral, Clem or Maru (At DH Atlanta he actually admitted he was in poor condition in the interview before the final). If the field of players is stronger it makes it much more unlikely that something like this happens because Dark might get knocked out by a slightly less accomplished player in better form. Thus, in the latter stages of the tournament you would be basically guaranteed to only face in-shape players.
Case in point: You surely agree that GSL nowadays is worth less than international events due to Serral, Clem and Reynor missing ... although there's no guarantee you'd face one of them in an international event like with herO during his DH Atlanta run. But saying that tournament was comparatively 'easy' to win and worth less would be of course dumb because he faced the most in-shape players at that event.
I generally agree with you that just going through the "road" of tournaments isn't particularly useful, not a fan of it. "Ohhh, but he had such an easy road"...yes, but in the end, that guy still survived while 15, 23 or even 31 other players didn't. My point however in this case is that the level of play in Katowice 2020 wasn't bad, it was in fact enormously high (as it is usually at Katowice and Blizzcon). So outright saying an OSL in 2013 was THAT much more difficult to win than a World Cup feels odd.
In fact, I still believe WCS and to a lesser extend Katowice are the two hardest tournaments to win, even at the prime of GSL. For one, and that is of course a very personal opinion, I rate weekenders higher and more difficult to win than preparation based tournaments, since coaches and the entire team structure doesn't factor in as much. But even more important: Lots of people have won a GSL. Players who you wouldn't even think about when threatened with a gun have won GSL trophies. But you are hard-pressed to find forgettable World Champions. YoDa maybe if you want to count that IEM Grand Final in Hannover (which I don't)? Genius if you count the very first BlizzCon Invitational? Polt if you are a GSL-only tryhard? Oliveira if you are a non-romantic?
Again, don't get me wrong: it is an incredible feat to win GSL (or atleast it was). But so many great GSL-heavyhitters never won a World Cup, while (depending if you only mean WCS or include Katowice aswell) alot of World Champions have won a GSL.
actually no, not a lot of world champions won a GSL. PartinG didn't win one. sOs didn't win one. Reynor didn't win one. Oliveira didn't win one. Serral of course didn't win one although he never played in it. In general though I agree that world championships are worth more than a GSL but comparing across era is difficult because I value all tournaments won between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players.
The skill level is a different discussion entirely but imo it doesn't make sense to compare skill across eras because the players today built on the knowledge that was created by past players.
"...between 2013-2016 a lot more due to the higher number of top level players."
I wouldn't say "a lot."
A lot more low-mid-tier code S players, maybe, but only a couple truly (3) top players: Hydra, Life, and Rain. Many protoss better than Rain stuck around. All of the top terrans stayed. Many zergs kept going who were at around Hydra and Life's level around the period where they stopped: Solar, Dark, soO, Rogue, and DRG, although some of these zergs later fell off top status eventually also. The vast, vast majority of top code S players stayed.
People have been judging Life's talent based on too little information. Toward the end of his career, there were signs of other zergs (soO, Dark, Hydra) beginning to eclipse him, based on Aligulac. I think he might have continued to make big waves like Dark and Rogue, but whether he'd be an outlier is an unknown. There's no evidence he would've pulled a Serral for 6 years in a row. His biggest success occurred while both he and the game were still very young, where many wild card factors were at play. He was more of a consistent performer, rather than a builds/strategy pop-offs wizard like Rogue, which suggests if he had kept around, he would've most likely enjoyed Dark's level of sucess, more or less. MVP is even harder to speculate, because he dropped off even much sooner after a long period of mid performances.
Again, I must add the caveat that we don't really know how many of his wins were legit. His match-fixing has called into question everything he's "achieved."
You underestimate the low-mid tier players, they may have not won so much but could still on a good day beat every player in the world which made winning tournaments considerably harder. Granted from 2016 to 2017 the difference isn't that large, hence the cutoff-point is a bit arbitrary, but with each subsequent year the talent pool got smaller and smaller
I'm not underestimating them. I specifically said early that even these players could pull a Scarlett/Oliveira. Anomalies don't determine an era. Justifying that Maru's early accomplishments during an era of relatively low skill, and less developed game, were better quality than WCs in a much more developed stage of the game, where players are all far more skilled, based on this flimsy reasoning of "there were a lot more low-mid-tier players" is kinda funny is all I'm saying.
I hope I don't blow your mind with this. But, how skilled people were in 2013 versus the present really has no bearing on anything if you're willing to be objective. You don't play against a machine in StarCraft II (unless it's Inno), you play against the other player. If those two players are of are equal skill, it doesn't matter if it's 2010, 2013,2015, 2020, 2023, they still have to play at their best to beat their opponent's best. You can argue that no one knew how to play the game when Mvp won his championships, but he was working with the same information, units and tools as everyone else and he was kicking the sh*t out of them.
Once you get into the subjective realm of making direct comparisons across dozens of balance patches, multiple expansions and as many as 14 years, you've already undermined your own position.
I don't agree, if Nestea just hit a level of play that was demonstrably shown to be the peak of SC2, and no one since even came close. Then he would be in the fore for the claim of GOAT, right?
Here Blizzard leaves in the 2007 Blizzcon champion Savior. So Life is out, but Savior is in, seems pretty strange and they probably only removed Life due to pressure. In the end it doesn't matter what they say, or even what the court says, I can still disagree with it. Like I can disagree with having gambling be illegal in S-Korea. It's illegal to smoke marijuana most places, but at least in the western world, people don't really care about it. Law does not always allign with ethics, which makes sense because you change laws over time. IEM also chooses to keep Yoda as a champion, which imo is a good thing. Also if you wipe away history then you also wipe away the lessons of history.
Blizzard vacated Saviors title aswell officially. And sure, you can disagree with anything and have an opinion, like anyone can. My opinion for example is that Life is an overrated player who owns his entire legacy to his matchfixing, otherwise you would know him today as the guy Serral constantly wipes the floor with. In the end though, this isn't about opinion, it is about facts. And the fact is that he is an idiot who threw games for money, causing gigantic damage. Done. Not much else to say about it.
As an addendum though: Life isn't "erased" from history, you can clearly see who won the 2014 World Championship Finals at BlizzCon - he just doesn't hold the title anymore. Which aligns with the roman system of "Damnatio Memoriae". This was a harsh punishment that could fell upon traitors, in which case they would get "erased" from public knowledge. Like their names would be carved out from stone plates and stuff. But the funny thing about the Damnatio Memoriae is, that we always know, 2000 years later, who it was about. Because the romans wanted it that way. Everyone should know who did something so bad their memory got "erased".
You can form opinions based on facts. Your statement about him being an idiot harming the scene, is your opinion. I didn't know about this "Damnatio Memoriae," but it sounds to me paradoxical to erase a name from history, so that he would be remembered. And I doubt that is what ppl are trying to do with Life.
Harming the scene is basically as close to immutable truth as one can get, as to what degree well that’s absolutely open to interpretation.
As far as I understand it it’s not especially paradoxical. The Romans knew that actually erasing someone from history was rather difficult to actually achieve, but that someone merited the attempt was something in and of itself and sent a certain message.
A modern equivalent would be the controversy against removing certain statues. Getting rid of them isn’t really erasing history, more a comment like ‘we’d rather not have a prominent statue of a slave trader in Bristol’ or whatever
On March 23 2024 03:02 Mmakorea wrote: Don’t worry Rogue fans, ARTOSIS has Rogue as the undisputed goat
Artosis literally said there is no undisputed GOAT. But if he was forced to pick he would pick Rogue.
rogue is the GOAT in my eyes, I don't care what others think
Funny if Rogue starts playing competitively next weeks, and suddenly wins the Code S and World Championship title, would his ranking be affected? I don't think so.
The lack of presence of Rogue in these two years back didn't seem to hurt his GOAT ranking place so much that they would still confidently put Serral ahead of him. Serral zealot fans coupled with "some" caster bias will not budge if Rogue is ahead of him in any achievement in coming years onward as they believe so just like they thought Maru shouldn't in the first place.
On March 23 2024 03:02 Mmakorea wrote: Don’t worry Rogue fans, ARTOSIS has Rogue as the undisputed goat
Artosis literally said there is no undisputed GOAT. But if he was forced to pick he would pick Rogue.
rogue is the GOAT in my eyes, I don't care what others think
Funny if Rogue starts playing competitively next weeks, and suddenly wins the Code S and World Championship title, would his ranking be affected? I don't think so.
The lack of presence of Rogue in these two years back didn't seem to hurt his GOAT ranking place so much that they would still confidently put Serral ahead of him. Serral zealot fans coupled with "some" caster bias will not budge if Rogue is ahead of him in any achievement in coming years onward as they believe so just like they thought Maru shouldn't in the first place.
At least for me, if Rogue won a Code S and a WC, it would make me easily put him back above Maru, and have a strong argument vs Serral for GOAT (like within a 40:60 or 60:40 range)
Because before Rogue left for military, I had Rogue slightly over Maru (highest WC achievement with 3x wins, and highest # of GSLs won at 4, tied with Maru), and Maru racked up 3 weaker GSLs with Rogue also gone. So Rogue coming back to win Code S without Maru would show that yeah he's still got it. And if he gets a 4th WC win then Serral only has 3 WC tier win (since Kato isn't officially a WC), so he has at least 1 metric above Serral. And it would show that Rogue and Serral are still competitive for who is the most successful LotV player, since Serral finished his small dip in performance and started being really strong in 2021-22 right before Rogue left.
So if Rogue is back and gives Serral a run for his money, it definitely would make him a very serious contender for #1 in my eyes, even if his winrate isn't as high as Serral's.
On March 23 2024 03:02 Mmakorea wrote: Don’t worry Rogue fans, ARTOSIS has Rogue as the undisputed goat
Artosis literally said there is no undisputed GOAT. But if he was forced to pick he would pick Rogue.
rogue is the GOAT in my eyes, I don't care what others think
Funny if Rogue starts playing competitively next weeks, and suddenly wins the Code S and World Championship title, would his ranking be affected? I don't think so.
The lack of presence of Rogue in these two years back didn't seem to hurt his GOAT ranking place so much that they would still confidently put Serral ahead of him. Serral zealot fans coupled with "some" caster bias will not budge if Rogue is ahead of him in any achievement in coming years onward as they believe so just like they thought Maru shouldn't in the first place.
At least for me, if Rogue won a Code S and a WC, it would make me easily put him back above Maru, and have a strong argument vs Serral for GOAT (like within a 40:60 or 60:40 range)
Because before Rogue left for military, I had Rogue slightly over Maru (highest WC achievement with 3x wins, and highest # of GSLs won at 4, tied with Maru), and Maru racked up 3 weaker GSLs with Rogue also gone. So Rogue coming back to win Code S without Maru would show that yeah he's still got it. And if he gets a 4th WC win then Serral only has 3 WC tier win (since Kato isn't officially a WC), so he has at least 1 metric above Serral. And it would show that Rogue and Serral are still competitive for who is the most successful LotV player, since Serral finished his small dip in performance and started being really strong in 2021-22 right before Rogue left.
So if Rogue is back and gives Serral a run for his money, it definitely would make him a very serious contender for #1 in my eyes, even if his winrate isn't as high as Serral's.
Yeah it's certainly a close call all round.
I had him at 3 personally because Maru comfortably outdid him in the strongest era of the game, and Serral at least in consistency did so in this 2018-onwards era. So to place Rogue at #1 overall for me is a bit odd, but nothing crazy, they are slim margins after all.
I think we're at the stage that even if Rogue did come back and add a few champs, the decline has/will really have set in, so I'm not sure it moves the needle all that much. To be fair I'm not just applying that to Rogue, I think if Serral did go to Code S and take one, it's maybe too late in the day to significantly alter my perception of him all that much too.
With the GOAT debate I really think it comes down to what one could have done in the past rather than anything they can actually do moving forwards. Rogue's missing those statement HoTS/early Legacy individual honours from his resumé, those aren't something he can really rectify if he does come back. Serral is lacking those Starleague participations, but for me anyway the field has really contracted that, even though I still think it would be cool I don't think he'd be proving much if he went now. Certainly less than if he'd gone 5/6 years ago.
Maru can maybe move the needle if he gets that WC monkey off his back, although even if he does he's still likely to lag some of the others by at least a couple, maybe more. Plus in the interim Serral may augment his particular claim, namely just consistent numbers and general dominance. Even if Serral hadn't won Katowice he's coming off one of the most ridiculous runs of all time, and there's no sign of him particularly easing off. If Serral continues in this vein but say, Maru takes Gamers 8 I'm still not sure I'd switch them around in my personal ranking. If Maru wins another Starleague well, 8-0 in his favour over Serral isn't all that much better than 7-0.
Certain boats have been missed methinks, and I don't see em sailing back anytime soon. If Maru had had a really dominant year across the circuit outside of Code S, if Serral had been active in Code S for a while and snagged a couple + denied Maru a few. From January 2023 thru now Serral is 362–86(80.80%) in games and 147–14(91.30%) in matches. I don't think Maru with his injuries is capable of such a span anymore, and even if he was I mean Serral's already done it, and he may have as strong a remainder of 2024. And as mentioned before if Serral goes to Code S right now he might snag one, but it doesn't really answer the kind of question it once wouldn't have as that tournament has winded down quite a bit from where it once was.
On March 23 2024 03:02 Mmakorea wrote: Don’t worry Rogue fans, ARTOSIS has Rogue as the undisputed goat
Artosis literally said there is no undisputed GOAT. But if he was forced to pick he would pick Rogue.
rogue is the GOAT in my eyes, I don't care what others think
Funny if Rogue starts playing competitively next weeks, and suddenly wins the Code S and World Championship title, would his ranking be affected? I don't think so.
The lack of presence of Rogue in these two years back didn't seem to hurt his GOAT ranking place so much that they would still confidently put Serral ahead of him. Serral zealot fans coupled with "some" caster bias will not budge if Rogue is ahead of him in any achievement in coming years onward as they believe so just like they thought Maru shouldn't in the first place.
At least for me, if Rogue won a Code S and a WC, it would make me easily put him back above Maru, and have a strong argument vs Serral for GOAT (like within a 40:60 or 60:40 range)
Because before Rogue left for military, I had Rogue slightly over Maru (highest WC achievement with 3x wins, and highest # of GSLs won at 4, tied with Maru), and Maru racked up 3 weaker GSLs with Rogue also gone. So Rogue coming back to win Code S without Maru would show that yeah he's still got it. And if he gets a 4th WC win then Serral only has 3 WC tier win (since Kato isn't officially a WC), so he has at least 1 metric above Serral. And it would show that Rogue and Serral are still competitive for who is the most successful LotV player, since Serral finished his small dip in performance and started being really strong in 2021-22 right before Rogue left.
So if Rogue is back and gives Serral a run for his money, it definitely would make him a very serious contender for #1 in my eyes, even if his winrate isn't as high as Serral's.
Yeah it's certainly a close call all round.
I had him at 3 personally because Maru comfortably outdid him in the strongest era of the game, and Serral at least in consistency did so in this 2018-onwards era. So to place Rogue at #1 overall for me is a bit odd, but nothing crazy, they are slim margins after all.
I think we're at the stage that even if Rogue did come back and add a few champs, the decline has/will really have set in, so I'm not sure it moves the needle all that much. To be fair I'm not just applying that to Rogue, I think if Serral did go to Code S and take one, it's maybe too late in the day to significantly alter my perception of him all that much too.
With the GOAT debate I really think it comes down to what one could have done in the past rather than anything they can actually do moving forwards. Rogue's missing those statement HoTS/early Legacy individual honours from his resumé, those aren't something he can really rectify if he does come back. Serral is lacking those Starleague participations, but for me anyway the field has really contracted that, even though I still think it would be cool I don't think he'd be proving much if he went now. Certainly less than if he'd gone 5/6 years ago.
Maru can maybe move the needle if he gets that WC monkey off his back, although even if he does he's still likely to lag some of the others by at least a couple, maybe more. Plus in the interim Serral may augment his particular claim, namely just consistent numbers and general dominance. Even if Serral hadn't won Katowice he's coming off one of the most ridiculous runs of all time, and there's no sign of him particularly easing off. If Serral continues in this vein but say, Maru takes Gamers 8 I'm still not sure I'd switch them around in my personal ranking. If Maru wins another Starleague well, 8-0 in his favour over Serral isn't all that much better than 7-0.
Certain boats have been missed methinks, and I don't see em sailing back anytime soon. If Maru had had a really dominant year across the circuit outside of Code S, if Serral had been active in Code S for a while and snagged a couple + denied Maru a few. From January 2023 thru now Serral is 362–86(80.80%) in games and 147–14(91.30%) in matches. I don't think Maru with his injuries is capable of such a span anymore, and even if he was I mean Serral's already done it, and he may have as strong a remainder of 2024. And as mentioned before if Serral goes to Code S right now he might snag one, but it doesn't really answer the kind of question it once wouldn't have as that tournament has winded down quite a bit from where it once was.
Yeah i guess that makes it a pretty good time to be having the GOAT debate, with SC2 entering its twilight for real now. Curious to see where the needle might move though once Serral/Maru have both retired and we can give things one last look!
(Also fingers crossed Microsoft gives a little love to SC2 and we're able to revive GSL and bring new interest into it. But it'd have to guarantee support for like 6-8 years minimum or something, in order for newer players to feel it's safe to invest a future into pursuing this game... since it can take a long time to get good. Plus there's also just the issue of a lack of interest RIP with little content creation, the game being old, smaller audiences and smaller glory, and Kespa/TV not being a thing anymore. It makes me sad thinking that the smaller a scene gets, the harder it'll be to regain interest. Best case i guess is they make a SC3 that's like SC2 but a little slower and more positional/tactical like BW. I wonder how much interest that'd gain as an esport...).
On March 23 2024 03:02 Mmakorea wrote: Don’t worry Rogue fans, ARTOSIS has Rogue as the undisputed goat
Artosis literally said there is no undisputed GOAT. But if he was forced to pick he would pick Rogue.
rogue is the GOAT in my eyes, I don't care what others think
Funny if Rogue starts playing competitively next weeks, and suddenly wins the Code S and World Championship title, would his ranking be affected? I don't think so.
The lack of presence of Rogue in these two years back didn't seem to hurt his GOAT ranking place so much that they would still confidently put Serral ahead of him. Serral zealot fans coupled with "some" caster bias will not budge if Rogue is ahead of him in any achievement in coming years onward as they believe so just like they thought Maru shouldn't in the first place.
At least for me, if Rogue won a Code S and a WC, it would make me easily put him back above Maru, and have a strong argument vs Serral for GOAT (like within a 40:60 or 60:40 range)
Because before Rogue left for military, I had Rogue slightly over Maru (highest WC achievement with 3x wins, and highest # of GSLs won at 4, tied with Maru), and Maru racked up 3 weaker GSLs with Rogue also gone. So Rogue coming back to win Code S without Maru would show that yeah he's still got it. And if he gets a 4th WC win then Serral only has 3 WC tier win (since Kato isn't officially a WC), so he has at least 1 metric above Serral. And it would show that Rogue and Serral are still competitive for who is the most successful LotV player, since Serral finished his small dip in performance and started being really strong in 2021-22 right before Rogue left.
So if Rogue is back and gives Serral a run for his money, it definitely would make him a very serious contender for #1 in my eyes, even if his winrate isn't as high as Serral's.
Yeah it's certainly a close call all round.
I had him at 3 personally because Maru comfortably outdid him in the strongest era of the game, and Serral at least in consistency did so in this 2018-onwards era. So to place Rogue at #1 overall for me is a bit odd, but nothing crazy, they are slim margins after all.
I think we're at the stage that even if Rogue did come back and add a few champs, the decline has/will really have set in, so I'm not sure it moves the needle all that much. To be fair I'm not just applying that to Rogue, I think if Serral did go to Code S and take one, it's maybe too late in the day to significantly alter my perception of him all that much too.
With the GOAT debate I really think it comes down to what one could have done in the past rather than anything they can actually do moving forwards. Rogue's missing those statement HoTS/early Legacy individual honours from his resumé, those aren't something he can really rectify if he does come back. Serral is lacking those Starleague participations, but for me anyway the field has really contracted that, even though I still think it would be cool I don't think he'd be proving much if he went now. Certainly less than if he'd gone 5/6 years ago.
Maru can maybe move the needle if he gets that WC monkey off his back, although even if he does he's still likely to lag some of the others by at least a couple, maybe more. Plus in the interim Serral may augment his particular claim, namely just consistent numbers and general dominance. Even if Serral hadn't won Katowice he's coming off one of the most ridiculous runs of all time, and there's no sign of him particularly easing off. If Serral continues in this vein but say, Maru takes Gamers 8 I'm still not sure I'd switch them around in my personal ranking. If Maru wins another Starleague well, 8-0 in his favour over Serral isn't all that much better than 7-0.
Certain boats have been missed methinks, and I don't see em sailing back anytime soon. If Maru had had a really dominant year across the circuit outside of Code S, if Serral had been active in Code S for a while and snagged a couple + denied Maru a few. From January 2023 thru now Serral is 362–86(80.80%) in games and 147–14(91.30%) in matches. I don't think Maru with his injuries is capable of such a span anymore, and even if he was I mean Serral's already done it, and he may have as strong a remainder of 2024. And as mentioned before if Serral goes to Code S right now he might snag one, but it doesn't really answer the kind of question it once wouldn't have as that tournament has winded down quite a bit from where it once was.
Yeah i guess that makes it a pretty good time to be having the GOAT debate, with SC2 entering its twilight for real now. Curious to see where the needle might move though once Serral/Maru have both retired and we can give things one last look!
(Also fingers crossed Microsoft gives a little love to SC2 and we're able to revive GSL and bring new interest into it. But it'd have to guarantee support for like 6-8 years minimum or something, in order for newer players to feel it's safe to invest a future into pursuing this game... since it can take a long time to get good. Plus there's also just the issue of a lack of interest RIP with little content creation, the game being old, smaller audiences and smaller glory, and Kespa/TV not being a thing anymore. It makes me sad thinking that the smaller a scene gets, the harder it'll be to regain interest. Best case i guess is they make a SC3 that's like SC2 but a little slower and more positional/tactical like BW. I wonder how much interest that'd gain as an esport...).
Aye, the pessimist in me feels even if such support did come it might be too little, too late, especially as Korea is concerned.
I think the Saudi money is basically immaterial in terms of the wider game's health. If you'd had that money a few years ago and distributed in other ways than basically making another big tournament for the game's top players, maybe it has at least some impact. Or if GSL had turned to things like crowdfunding a little earlier in the day
On March 23 2024 03:02 Mmakorea wrote: Don’t worry Rogue fans, ARTOSIS has Rogue as the undisputed goat
Artosis literally said there is no undisputed GOAT. But if he was forced to pick he would pick Rogue.
rogue is the GOAT in my eyes, I don't care what others think
Funny if Rogue starts playing competitively next weeks, and suddenly wins the Code S and World Championship title, would his ranking be affected? I don't think so.
The lack of presence of Rogue in these two years back didn't seem to hurt his GOAT ranking place so much that they would still confidently put Serral ahead of him. Serral zealot fans coupled with "some" caster bias will not budge if Rogue is ahead of him in any achievement in coming years onward as they believe so just like they thought Maru shouldn't in the first place.
At least for me, if Rogue won a Code S and a WC, it would make me easily put him back above Maru, and have a strong argument vs Serral for GOAT (like within a 40:60 or 60:40 range)
Because before Rogue left for military, I had Rogue slightly over Maru (highest WC achievement with 3x wins, and highest # of GSLs won at 4, tied with Maru), and Maru racked up 3 weaker GSLs with Rogue also gone. So Rogue coming back to win Code S without Maru would show that yeah he's still got it. And if he gets a 4th WC win then Serral only has 3 WC tier win (since Kato isn't officially a WC), so he has at least 1 metric above Serral. And it would show that Rogue and Serral are still competitive for who is the most successful LotV player, since Serral finished his small dip in performance and started being really strong in 2021-22 right before Rogue left.
So if Rogue is back and gives Serral a run for his money, it definitely would make him a very serious contender for #1 in my eyes, even if his winrate isn't as high as Serral's.
Yeah it's certainly a close call all round.
I had him at 3 personally because Maru comfortably outdid him in the strongest era of the game, and Serral at least in consistency did so in this 2018-onwards era. So to place Rogue at #1 overall for me is a bit odd, but nothing crazy, they are slim margins after all.
I think we're at the stage that even if Rogue did come back and add a few champs, the decline has/will really have set in, so I'm not sure it moves the needle all that much. To be fair I'm not just applying that to Rogue, I think if Serral did go to Code S and take one, it's maybe too late in the day to significantly alter my perception of him all that much too.
With the GOAT debate I really think it comes down to what one could have done in the past rather than anything they can actually do moving forwards. Rogue's missing those statement HoTS/early Legacy individual honours from his resumé, those aren't something he can really rectify if he does come back. Serral is lacking those Starleague participations, but for me anyway the field has really contracted that, even though I still think it would be cool I don't think he'd be proving much if he went now. Certainly less than if he'd gone 5/6 years ago.
Maru can maybe move the needle if he gets that WC monkey off his back, although even if he does he's still likely to lag some of the others by at least a couple, maybe more. Plus in the interim Serral may augment his particular claim, namely just consistent numbers and general dominance. Even if Serral hadn't won Katowice he's coming off one of the most ridiculous runs of all time, and there's no sign of him particularly easing off. If Serral continues in this vein but say, Maru takes Gamers 8 I'm still not sure I'd switch them around in my personal ranking. If Maru wins another Starleague well, 8-0 in his favour over Serral isn't all that much better than 7-0.
Certain boats have been missed methinks, and I don't see em sailing back anytime soon. If Maru had had a really dominant year across the circuit outside of Code S, if Serral had been active in Code S for a while and snagged a couple + denied Maru a few. From January 2023 thru now Serral is 362–86(80.80%) in games and 147–14(91.30%) in matches. I don't think Maru with his injuries is capable of such a span anymore, and even if he was I mean Serral's already done it, and he may have as strong a remainder of 2024. And as mentioned before if Serral goes to Code S right now he might snag one, but it doesn't really answer the kind of question it once wouldn't have as that tournament has winded down quite a bit from where it once was.
Yeah i guess that makes it a pretty good time to be having the GOAT debate, with SC2 entering its twilight for real now. Curious to see where the needle might move though once Serral/Maru have both retired and we can give things one last look!
(Also fingers crossed Microsoft gives a little love to SC2 and we're able to revive GSL and bring new interest into it. But it'd have to guarantee support for like 6-8 years minimum or something, in order for newer players to feel it's safe to invest a future into pursuing this game... since it can take a long time to get good. Plus there's also just the issue of a lack of interest RIP with little content creation, the game being old, smaller audiences and smaller glory, and Kespa/TV not being a thing anymore. It makes me sad thinking that the smaller a scene gets, the harder it'll be to regain interest. Best case i guess is they make a SC3 that's like SC2 but a little slower and more positional/tactical like BW. I wonder how much interest that'd gain as an esport...).
Aye, the pessimist in me feels even if such support did come it might be too little, too late, especially as Korea is concerned.
I think the Saudi money is basically immaterial in terms of the wider game's health. If you'd had that money a few years ago and distributed in other ways than basically making another big tournament for the game's top players, maybe it has at least some impact. Or if GSL had turned to things like crowdfunding a little earlier in the day
Yeah it really sucks that GSL didn't crowdfund earlier. I wonder if maybe it wasn't desirable to their sponsors or such, to basically say "we're sponsored by Hot6ix but it's actually we're not happy enough with the money they're giving".
Would have been awesome to have money distributed in a more sustainable way too. And if only Gamers8 could have happened like 2-3 years ago too... in 2020 when TY was peaking and we still had random new blood with potential like Percival, his TvZ with Rogue was crazy.
On March 31 2024 03:40 serralbest wrote: rogue is back !he is 6100mmr now
Wow great news! Hope he can reach the height he was before! Can't wait for more "unorthodox" gameplay in the new patch from him XD
That was sooner than I thought! He missed 5 GSLs and 2 IEM world championships. Notice how Koreans stopped winning oversea tournaments while Rogue is gone
On March 31 2024 06:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: omg is rogue really back, let's go!! lol
dang too bad he's not gonna qualify for EWC, or is there still a chance? is there anything to win left to get in?
ESL Spring has open sign ups. Chances are rogue could play in the main event. If he's good enough to get top 4 at the main event, he's automatically qualified for EWC. Alternatively, he can try his luck at the EWC open qualifiers, though only two players advance via that route. All in all, there is a decent chance rogue makes EWC, considering most of the heavy hitters will get qualified through other means besides the EWC open qualifiers
On March 31 2024 06:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: omg is rogue really back, let's go!! lol
dang too bad he's not gonna qualify for EWC, or is there still a chance? is there anything to win left to get in?
ESL Spring has open sign ups. Chances are rogue could play in the main event. If he's good enough to get top 4 at the main event, he's automatically qualified for EWC. Alternatively, he can try his luck at the EWC open qualifiers, though only two players advance via that route. All in all, there is a decent chance rogue makes EWC, considering most of the heavy hitters will get qualified through other means besides the EWC open qualifiers
If he can qualify to primer tournament with just mere weeks playing, he may be the first one to do so.
On April 05 2024 19:17 serralbest wrote: rogue is 6400mmr now and rougue will vs oliveira 3 hours later
he used to be 7k before military no joke. 6400 is still good though if he is actively laddering. i think its a weird situation now cuz i dont see too many active kr ladder accounts. tournaments should be a good indicator of where his level is at. I think most players practice in private.
Rogue 1:4 Oliveira. Had a great showing in G1 with late game mastery, then Oliveira crushed him with 4 straight tank push games. Still impressive considering he just came back from military, and Oliveira himself admits that the new maps heavily favors tank plays.
Apparently Oliveira also won 3:2 against Serral and 5:0 Shin in their practices in past few days, he's feeling great about TvZ in the new patch. But that's a bit beyond the topic of this thread.
On April 06 2024 00:53 Nasigil1 wrote: Rogue 1:4 Oliveira. Had a great showing in G1 with late game mastery, then Oliveira crushed him with 4 straight tank push games. Still impressive considering he just came back from military, and Oliveira himself admits that the new maps heavily favors tank plays.
Apparently Oliveira also won 3:2 against Serral and 5:0 Shin in their practices in past few days, he's feeling great about TvZ in the new patch. But that's a bit beyond the topic of this thread.
That doesn't look bad at all for rogue's chances to qualify to the big events later this year. If oliveira truly is this on point, taking a game off him, late game no less, is pretty sick.
On April 06 2024 00:53 Nasigil1 wrote: Rogue 1:4 Oliveira. Had a great showing in G1 with late game mastery, then Oliveira crushed him with 4 straight tank push games. Still impressive considering he just came back from military, and Oliveira himself admits that the new maps heavily favors tank plays.
Apparently Oliveira also won 3:2 against Serral and 5:0 Shin in their practices in past few days, he's feeling great about TvZ in the new patch. But that's a bit beyond the topic of this thread.
New maps are going to mask the impact of the mine nerf and then we'll get a Zerg favored map pool right before the EWC where tanks are useless and mines will have much lower impact due to the patch.
Good to know that you are already ramping up your next chapter of "nooooo, everything is so imbalanced and unfair", even when Zerg gets totally pummeled right now :3