EPTHell the Olympics does this, it’s the best participants from individual countries, not the outright best participants of each discipline.
Team Liquid Greatest of All Time Contest - Page 34
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23754 Posts
Hell the Olympics does this, it’s the best participants from individual countries, not the outright best participants of each discipline. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23754 Posts
On May 15 2019 05:48 The_Red_Viper wrote: Serral isn't even top 10 at this point, even if one would agree with the statement that his peak was the highest ever, you don't become extra points for that (at least not noticeably so) just because his success was more clustered. He lacks success compared to a lot of other players who were at the top over multiple years. Though i have to say that jealous basically having a similar pov makes me question if i am right  It’s entirely on how you weight it. I don’t actually think his peak play is necessarily the best ever either incidentally, although it’s up there for sure. 2013 Inno and 2018 Maru being two that spring to mind, and Mvp was on another level from his peers T his peak. I don’t think it’s fair on Serral though in that he’s hit his peak level relatively recently, and he’s still performing really well. It’s hard to judge him on longevity because if we were being fair we’d have to consider that in terms of what the future holds rather than looking backwards We don’t judge Maru for example, despite his relative youth for years and years of mediocrity at this level on that basis, we judge him more on what he’s achieved since he hit his level and potential if that makes sense. Judging too much on longevity vs other factors also throws out tons of mediocre performances. A player can win a few tournaments, do nothing for a few years, win another few, slump again and win another few tournaments etc and they’ll be considered to have more staying power than maybe a player who’s relatively recently peaked but is consistently crushing it. I don’t regard Mvp more highly for having longevity, but much more so for struggling against injury with his brain and his balls alone and still being competitive against the best. I don’t regard Gumiho or Byun more highly for longevity, but for continuing with their particular atypical approaches to the game and practice and eventually getting to the pr Missed land of a GSL title. | ||
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Azzur
Australia6253 Posts
GuMiho has been mainly known for his dedication to play Starcraft his own way, innovating the terran meta multiple times and finding solutions instead of whining, but he never was quite shower with the same praise as other top terran players. Yet he has one of the most long-lasting careers of the scene | ||
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Dave4
494 Posts
On May 15 2019 05:43 Shuffleblade wrote: Yeah call the people that disagree with you trolls, that makes you right and they wrong because trolls cant be right, right? There's different opinions here, doesn't mean you are right and everyone else is wrong. Its subjective, there is no right. Multiple people have unfairly accused me of being a troll in this thread I guess I was just fighting back. I apologise and agree with you. | ||
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Yonnua
United Kingdom2331 Posts
On May 15 2019 07:32 Wombat_NI wrote: I mean, maybe, maybe structuring it in such a way to enable foreigners to play properly full time and grow was structurally a good decision. The scene needs some sustainability too, As per your example well, Yao Ming developed in China and played in the NBA when he’d outgrown that environment. This is how any successful sport works. Northern Irish football is garbage tier compared to the top leagues, but players can pay the bills with it and the best (if not picked up very young already) can move up to Scotland or maybe England if they’re very very good. The prior situation moved from the initial top 1-2 big name Koreans like Mvp adding prestige and hype by playing MLGs to every half decent Korean playing in them. No scene is ever going to thrive when it’s be literally a top ten player in the whole world or you can’t actually do it and pay the bills. You can stream or coach, or work a part time job and try to close a skill gap with players already better than you by, having less time to devote to it. Yes I want to see the best Starcraft level possible, but you don’t get that without structure. Koreans have established depth through the BW developments, team houses and real interest in the games there, Europe has better players since the region lock, and has a relative outlier in Serral who has come on a lot, the Americas haven’t pushed on because for other reasons they have less full timers, but the ones they have in Neeb, Scarlett and Special are all GSL standard competitive Yeah, in this analogy, GSL is the NBA, and if Serral chooses to never compete at the highest level of play, he's staying in the small pond. He isn't one of the greatest of all time because he hasn't competed at that level: his achievements in WCS aren't directly comparable to the achievements of players in a more competitive environment. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17831 Posts
On May 15 2019 16:16 Yonnua wrote: Yeah, in this analogy, GSL is the NBA, and if Serral chooses to never compete at the highest level of play, he's staying in the small pond. He isn't one of the greatest of all time because he hasn't competed at that level: his achievements in WCS aren't directly comparable to the achievements of players in a more competitive environment. Except that he did win the Olympics as well. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23754 Posts
Katowice and Blizzcon pay more and have ludicrous fields, in fact Katowice probably has the best fields for quality because players get more shots to qualify so you don’t have players failing to qualify because they had one off day, which happens in the GSL. The GSL also takes a long time from qualification to the end, so while not a major thing IMO that lag has players go in and out of form, Katowice is more of a short snapshot of who’s the best at that particular time. Blizzcon has the issue the GSL has only more so. Personally I’d like a quarterly WCS World tournament over a week or more, 16 player or something. Top 8 of the GSL, Top 8 of WCS or weight it higher to the GSL end, bo5 from the round of 16 preparation style tournament. I think it would fill a lot of holes, the relatively low prize NK ey relative to play level in Korea, the desire for us viewers to see more of the best foreigners face the best Koreans, and also a chance outside GSL for them to be doing this in a longer preparation style tournament. Plus if it offers Blizzcon points it also give more chances to consistently good players to book their spot there. | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
On May 15 2019 07:55 Wombat_NI wrote: It’s entirely on how you weight it. I don’t actually think his peak play is necessarily the best ever either incidentally, although it’s up there for sure. 2013 Inno and 2018 Maru being two that spring to mind, and Mvp was on another level from his peers T his peak. I don’t think it’s fair on Serral though in that he’s hit his peak level relatively recently, and he’s still performing really well. It’s hard to judge him on longevity because if we were being fair we’d have to consider that in terms of what the future holds rather than looking backwards We don’t judge Maru for example, despite his relative youth for years and years of mediocrity at this level on that basis, we judge him more on what he’s achieved since he hit his level and potential if that makes sense. Judging too much on longevity vs other factors also throws out tons of mediocre performances. A player can win a few tournaments, do nothing for a few years, win another few, slump again and win another few tournaments etc and they’ll be considered to have more staying power than maybe a player who’s relatively recently peaked but is consistently crushing it. I don’t regard Mvp more highly for having longevity, but much more so for struggling against injury with his brain and his balls alone and still being competitive against the best. I don’t regard Gumiho or Byun more highly for longevity, but for continuing with their particular atypical approaches to the game and practice and eventually getting to the pr Missed land of a GSL title. Well yeah ofc it is up to how one weighs things, but i really don't see any logical argument to why one shouldn't just look at the entire success of a player's career and instead focus on cherrypicked data points. No we judge maru on the success he had in his career, "potential" is a word people use when they can't present something tangible, it only exists in people's minds and is basically a useless metric. Starcraft competition is played to win games and tournaments. Not every tournament is the same, not only 1st place is worth something, not only individual success is. (that is where the weighing comes in) Serral won a bunch of wcs events which are arguably not nearly worth the same as other high lvl competition (basically anything where top koreans can attend) + Blizzcon and gsl vs the world. He did well in some other events (wesg 2017 + 2018, katowice 17+18+19 and IEM PyeongChang ; to varying degrees, 3x ro8, ro4, 3rd and 2nd). Now compare this body of work with anyone people would bring up for a top 10 status and it's barely worth talking about in most cases. Him having an undefeated streak is a nice trivia, but that streak was mostly built of lesser competition. How one values these WCS victories compared to say GSL or blizzcon? Well that's another topic, but anyone reasonable has to agree that it is worth less. Even if we subscribe to the notion that his run was the best ever (i don't), then you'll still have to explain why that more clustered success is "better" than the success of people who spread it out more. You can look at it from both angles, it means more domination, but at the same time it also means less consistency. Let's not forget that serral plays this game since 2012. If he just started playing a while ago and all of his success was clustered like it is now, that would at least be a better argument, but even then we run into the problem of there being a lack of results compared to others, he could catch up in the future, but that's a "what if". Overall i see no real reason to think that serral is top 10 at this point in time. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23754 Posts
On May 16 2019 00:06 The_Red_Viper wrote: Well yeah ofc it is up to how one weighs things, but i really don't see any logical argument to why one shouldn't just look at the entire success of a player's career and instead focus on cherrypicked data points. No we judge maru on the success he had in his career, "potential" is a word people use when they can't present something tangible, it only exists in people's minds and is basically a useless metric. Starcraft competition is played to win games and tournaments. Not every tournament is the same, not only 1st place is worth something, not only individual success is. (that is where the weighing comes in) Serral won a bunch of wcs events which are arguably not nearly worth the same as other high lvl competition (basically anything where top koreans can attend) + Blizzcon and gsl vs the world. He did well in some other events (wesg 2017 + 2018, katowice 17+18+19 and IEM PyeongChang ; to varying degrees, 3x ro8, ro4, 3rd and 2nd). Now compare this body of work with anyone people would bring up for a top 10 status and it's barely worth talking about in most cases. Him having an undefeated streak is a nice trivia, but that streak was mostly built of lesser competition. How one values these WCS victories compared to say GSL or blizzcon? Well that's another topic, but anyone reasonable has to agree that it is worth less. Even if we subscribe to the notion that his run was the best ever (i don't), then you'll still have to explain why that more clustered success is "better" than the success of people who spread it out more. You can look at it from both angles, it means more domination, but at the same time it also means less consistency. Let's not forget that serral plays this game since 2012. If he just started playing a while ago and all of his success was clustered like it is now, that would at least be a better argument, but even then we run into the problem of there being a lack of results compared to others, he could catch up in the future, but that's a "what if". Overall i see no real reason to think that serral is top 10 at this point in time. I’m not sure there is a top 10 one can make tbh, for me it’s a clear top 3 of Mvp, Inno and Maru (plus Voldemort) and a tier below of all-time greats that is probably really quite large. We’re talking a game that is on its 3rd iteration, never mind patches, whose tournament scene has changed greatly over the years, had Koreans and the foreign scene initially quite split and then Koreans being at most foreign tournaments, the entry of Kespa and Proleague and then the demise of Proleague. Comparing people across all that flux is mighty difficult indeed. I weight Serral’s streak more highly because nobody’s ever really done it before, but also his streak included his big wins against Koreans as well. Hypothetical Serral’s streak occurs in WCS a year earlier let’s say, and he wins his Korean tournaments a year later. I still think his WCS streak is impressive in isolation because nobody’s really done it before, but I do think it augments his Blizzcon win coming on the back of it. Even Neeb has dropped a set in WCS challenger this season for example. Personal preferences of course, I weight performance quite high in addition to just winning things too. So Serral’s run is more impressive to me in that he dismantled players pretty frequently, and straight up outplayed the best around, rather than it being a scrappy struggle. I rate Maru and Inno more highly than other players not just because of their trophy cabinet but in the manner they destroyed fields when they were hot. But yeah the more I think about it the more I just can’t cut down my lists at all haha. | ||
Nakajin
Canada8988 Posts
Match 1  TaeJa: 54 votes DongRaeGu: 17 votesTaeJa goes to the round of 16!Match 2 Solar: 34 votesGuMiho: 33 votesSolar by the skin of his teeth goes to the next round and we are in for a rematch of IEM Shenzhen finals. (Still a bit salty about that pause by the way  ) | ||
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Nakajin
Canada8988 Posts
Serral vs  Classic: Holding up the stormSerral: 1 Blizcon 4 WCS, 1 GSL vs the World, 2 WCS finals, longest offline series streak of SC2 historyClassic: 1 GSL, 1 SSL, 2 ST, 1 IEM, 2 Blizzcon semi-finals, 1 IEM Katowice final7 years ago, a storm started to brew in the far land of what is barely still Europe, as Serral was poised to make his entry into the Starcraft world. First came the rounds of 64 at his first four Dreamhack, then the rounds of 32, 5 in a row in 2014, then 3 rounds of 16 as the next year come to pass. By the time Serral hit his first premier round of 8 in Leipzig and started to show results in others smaller tournament in 2016 rumours of the storm started to go around. 2017 confirmed those rumors, his 4 rounds of 8 in premiers confirmed his slow but inexorable rise in results, but it was when he pushed Neeb to the brink of defeat in the grand final of WCS Jönköping that the world at large finally took notice of the ever-closing storm. The foreign world was at first glad at the perspective of another talent joining their fray in their fight for recognition against Koreans, fool enough to think that simply blowing in the sense of the wind made them part of the storm. When it finally hit their shore in the start of 2018, they finally saw it for what it was, a hurricane that was gonna engorge them all. At first it seemed like the Koreans tranches would hold on, as he was hold by Classic and Maru, but after soO put on the last defence at Nation Wars, they too were swept away by the storm. What follow is history, from WCS Austin Challenger in mid-may 2018 to IEM Katowice in February 2019 Serral would win every single offline tournament he signed up, win all his offline series, have a 98,75% win rate in overall series (damn Neeb), become the second foreigner to win a triple crown, complete the WCS grand slam, and most of all cleave through the Blizzcon bracket to become world champion. As he stood triumphant in Anaheim, it seems like Serral was finally ready to rest, the teary-eyed man overlooking his trophy contrasted with the unrelenting storm that had rework the SC2 landscape. The start of 2019 was pointed as many as the start of a new dawn, the last man to deny Serral a championship in soO would do it again in Katowice followed up by defeat in the final of WESG and WCS Winter. When there was nowhere up to go, it seemed like Serral has become mortal once again, but the winds have start howling again and the coming months may prove us that we are just in the eye of the storm.Classic was very much off the radar at the start of the Kespa switch, the STX Terran had some traction in his last BW years, but his SC2 start while not straight up abysmal was still pretty bad; he didn’t qualify for anything and ended up being bench by his team in Proleague after he became the first Korean in almost a decade to lose to a foreigner. He looked destined to fade away in the switch like hyvaa or Flying. His decision to switch to protoss completely revitalize his play, he became a solid player in STX roaster, but stayed in the shadow of INnoVation and Dear and even when he conquered GSL code S on his second try (lien) the focus was pretty much evenly split between the soO tragedy and balance complain about a 2014 full of protoss champions. His subsequent elimination in the round of 32 made fans think he would follow in the path of Seed, a stigma that even a semi-final at Blizzcon couldn’t erased. It took an SSL and IEM victory and a slew of strong proleague appearances for us to finally accept that he was truly part of the world elite. Strangely it’s when he finally got recognition that he entered somewhat of a drought. He would spend the next 3 years without winning a single championship. He was far from being outclass, playing in 8 semi-finals of premier tournaments and never making anyone doubt he had what it takes to win every single one of them, but something what missing. It wasn’t his play, always rightly balanced between cheesy and macro back by a calm but decisive execution and a very good ability read the game, but he just never seemed able to take that final step anymore, to come down with a series when he needed it the most. As Classic first announced his incoming retirement due to his military services, it seemed he would retire as “one of” the great protoss of his time. Fast forward a few months he has been in the final of 3 of his last 4 tournament, winning 2 super tournaments. With his Blizzcon ticket all but punch and all the momentum in the world going into this GSL, Classic run against the clock to fulfil all his career dreams before the military come for him, seems to have push him to even bigger heights. The next few months are gonna be decisive for Serral and Classic legacy, as both seems ready to dominate the rest of the year, but even without that they already have made a great case for Starcraft greatness.Leenock vs INnoVation: The real monsterLeenock: 2 MLG, 1 IGN Proleague, 1 Dreamhack, 1 GSL final, a very good GSTL playerINnoVation: 3 GSL, 1 SSL, 1 GSL vs The World, 2 IEM, 1 WESG, 2 time Proleague MVPFolk tales are full of monsters, great beast with claws the size of a minibus, creatures made from combination of others animals can could only have been thought by a mad god, sprites and fairies happy to lure you into the dark. Since the oldest days of Starcraft one of those monsters roamed around, don’t let his chubby smile and his silly dances fools you, as soon as you set foot in the murky Starcraft waters you’ll see him stretch his tentacles all around you and before you know what is happening the ] Leenoctopus will have eaten you whole.Leenock was great since the very start of the game but his rise to Starcraft fame came as he denied Mvp his 3rd straight GSL final, only to fall to jjakji. Leenock may have failed to win one of the most one-sided final on paper, but he wouldn’t miss his chance to hunt SC2 heroes as his lower bracket run at MLG Providence was an “who’s who” of Starcraft superstars beating BoxeR-MMA-IdrA-Mvp-HuK-DRG and NaNiwa. Leenock would go on to win 3 other premier tournaments as well as reach another final of a stack MLG, but it is still his first win in Providence that is the most remembered and in some way is the best incarnation of his career. Shortly after his MLG win he would be overshadowed by fellow zerg DongRaeGu, and his second string of victory at the end of 2012 is remembered more as the time a young idiot name Life came to his own. Leenock was in his element in the background, but as he little by little was forgotten by all except some ancient story teller he never went anywhere. Leenock was in code S every single year except 2015, when he was top 8 at SSL, and all this time the Leenoctopus would be all to happy to lure in foolhardy travellers too prone to dismiss the ancient tales. (1-2-3)Just as the Leenoctopus went back to lurking in the shadow a new kind of monsters appear, not one made of flesh and claws of but a modern monster, a machine coming out of the corporatist factory of Kespa, someone who isn’t phase by the flowers of victory but is all to happy to laugh as he’s crushing a man lifelong dream. INnoVation didn’t get to hide, he was always in the blinding neon lights of the Starcraft biggest stages, from the second he stepped in the scene to this day no one could ignore him. Everyone knew the game has entered a new era, gone was the amateurish fun of the MLG, the 200 tl pages of silly drama, the exuberant celebrations, the time for games was over.Less than 4 months after his SC2 debut, he reached his first Code S final and although Soulkey, with his back against the wall, managed to found the flaw in INnoVation practice, he would just comeback stronger and faster winning the season finals just after. The new Korean machine would quickly conquer the Starcraft world. Against most INnoVation macro was enough to crush his opponent, they could do whatever trick they wanted, there was nothing stopping someone who was not merely stronger, cleverer or quicker, but just “more”.The world elite would catch on quickly to INnoVation and he had plenty of epic duel at the top of Starcraft (and quite a few embarrassing one if we are honest), but it’s all the other one; the aspiring amateurs, the hopeful foreigners and the hard-working veterans that would be forever left in the dust.In the next years INnoVation would go on to win 4 Koreans leagues, 2 IEM, a GSL vs The World and a lot more, as well as be one of the most dominant team league players ever. And while the world championship tittle still eludes him, he’s on everyone lips when we start to talk about the greatest to ever touch a keyboard. When Leenock came up to the scene, there was still that dream that if you work at it hard enough you too could go on a rampage in a lower bracket of an MLG and beat the world greatest stars. It was a silly idea, but it was still there. In this new world of Innovation all of that is gone, it’s painfully obvious that we’ll never be able to do what those new monsters do, he took Starcraft and dragged it away from us. Nevertheless, Leenock is still there, lurking around and taking down those who think they are above this ancient monster of the game, and when the GSL light closes down for good he might very will still be there waiting for his moment to snatch one more victim.Polls are open until Saturday may 18 around 8pm EST. Theses polls are closed | ||
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Dave4
494 Posts
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starkiller123
United States4029 Posts
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
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Azzur
Australia6253 Posts
In which era has there ever happened where a foreigner was favourite to beat a Korean in a MAJOR finals in SC2?? VOTE FOR SERRAL!!! In Innovation vs Leenock, I expect an easy win for Innovation. | ||
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Jealous
10096 Posts
On May 16 2019 16:05 Azzur wrote: Vote for Serral!! Yes, his major accomplishments happened in 2018 but consider this - at Blizzcon, when it was a Serral vs Stats final, I actually felt that Serral was the favourite to win. In which era has there ever happened where a foreigner was favourite to beat a Korean in a MAJOR finals in SC2?? VOTE FOR SERRAL!!! In Innovation vs Leenock, I expect an easy win for Innovation. How is his nationality relevant to his skill in the game? | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6691 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain17831 Posts
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Xain0n
Italy3963 Posts
Classic's achievements are notable and well distributed over the year, but I don't think there was a single period when he was considered the uncontested best player in the world. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6691 Posts
 Great write-ups, as always! Chapeau! | ||
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