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Serral is doubtless among the current S class koreans, shoulder to shoulder with Innovation, Maru, Classic and Dark.
The question is, if Neeb, Scarlett and Special can be considered A+ level. Are they equal to soO, herO, Trap, sOs and Dear?
Can Lambo, Uthermal, Heromarine, Showtime and Elazer be equaled to A- TY, Rogue, Stats(?) , Solar, Ragnarok(?) or Parting(?)?
? marks for current results heavily influencing why I put them there.
If you believe the above then it must be said that the foreign scene is pretty close to the koreans. The way I see it the gap has been closing, that is not a meme. Maybe its not closed but its gotten very much closer.
Serral is S level, the question is of any other foreigner can be considered equal level to the S/A+ koreans, I don't really think so, its closer but not equal.
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On June 14 2019 00:28 Shuffleblade wrote:
Serral is doubtless among the current S class koreans, shoulder to shoulder with Innovation, Maru, Classic and Dark.
The question is, if Neeb, Scarlett and Special can be considered A+ level. Are they equal to soO, herO, Trap, sOs and Dear?
Can Lambo, Uthermal, Heromarine, Showtime and Elazer be equaled to A- TY, Rogue, Stats(?) , Solar, Ragnarok(?) or Parting(?)?
? marks for current results heavily influencing why I put them there.
If you believe the above then it must be said that the foreign scene is pretty close to the koreans. The way I see it the gap has been closing, that is not a meme. Maybe its not closed but its gotten very much closer.
Serral is S level, the question is of any other foreigner can be considered equal level to the S/A+ koreans, I don't really think so, its closer but not equal.
Hmm... I would go more for sth like this
S: Serral
A+: Neeb
A- : Special, Scarlett, Reynor
as these are the only ones were Serral actually has to play decent and all of them had some succes in Korea already.
About the rest of the names... I don't know. Maybe on a really good day?
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Canada8989 Posts
On June 13 2019 17:56 MarianoSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2019 03:00 Xain0n wrote:On June 13 2019 02:47 BerserkSword wrote:On June 13 2019 02:38 Xain0n wrote:On June 13 2019 02:27 Jealous wrote:On June 13 2019 02:06 Xain0n wrote:On June 13 2019 01:28 MarianoSC2 wrote:On June 13 2019 01:09 Xain0n wrote:On June 13 2019 00:48 MarianoSC2 wrote:On June 12 2019 10:09 Wombat_NI wrote:
It’s a pretty even matchup really, they’re both defined by great peak years more than most other players, it’s about as 50/50 a matchup as I can think of here No, its not that close. Rogue is superior, and the voting is about 50/50 only because Rogue is slumping now and Serral fanboys would force-gather votes no matter who he is up against. (the already couple times mentioned delusion syndrom you are suffering) If this voting was done next year and Serral keeps up his form and results, then we might have another story and fanboys might have more reasonable claims. But right now? Nah... Sure its closer than deciding between Rain and Byun, but its not as close as the vote currently is showing. You have never come to suspect you might be the delusional one? Rogue won more international titles, everything else is on Serral's side; I understand that winning multiple WCS in a row is, in your opinion, an inferior result to getting stuck in Code S' ro8 multiple times, but it really seems a flawed one to me. Wouldnt you say rallying fanboy troops on various pages just to make sure Serral gets the votes is a bit deluded? It feels like even you dont believe he should win. One of you even voted for Rogue because he knows deep down its the correct choice  No, I always recognize Serrals strengths and he clearly has the potential to be one of the best players ever, but he is just nowhere near that yet. How can we compare him with the best if he is not playing with the best? It would not be fair to other top players who are consistently competing on a top level. WCS is nothing, yes, I stand by that. If you want to count Serrals WCS achievments as a deciding factor we might as well count Olimoleagues for Rogue and GSL RO8. Everything except recency bias and fanboy bias is on Rogues side. This ridicolousness regarding WCS is borderline insulting, as long as there are people who think it's a competition worth nothing more people who counterbalance this idea are required. Is there really anyone who can honestly say that WCS has a comparable playing field to GSL? Like, that the people in the Ro32 and beyond in WCS are just as strong as those in GSL? Or is it just jingoistic wishful thinking? GSL is harder, there is no doubt about it. This does not mean you can ignore WCS at all. to me it's like when people bring up olympic/european/chinese basketball when discussing greatest basketball players of all time. Only thing that really matters is the NBA. Doesnt matter how good Carmelo Anthony was in the olympics, how good the gasol brothers were in europe, how good stephon marbury was in china. It's all about the NBA, just like it's all about the GSL (or other tournaments where there are a lot of top koreans) I don't fail to see how you can be convinced of that, but I cannot stop repeating this is not HoTS anymore and non korean players are actually good enough to be taken into consideration; this applies to WCS as well. Except that it is the complete opposite. WCS was much tougher before when Koreans were participating in it. How can you not see that? I refuse to believe someone can be that deluded and ignorant at the same time... :/ Gap is closing is a meme. There are 2-3 foreigners who can compete with mid level koreans and then there is Serral who can compete with the top. How is that good or worth noting in your eyes?
Bad faith appart, I think nowaday WCS is harder than the old WCS EU but easier than the NA version, and clearly harder than the 2015 3 korean version.
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On June 13 2019 18:36 Wombat_NI wrote:
Korea had a depth of player talent that those guys were still basically better than any foreigners at the time, Korea does not have that depth any more, while foreigners have a higher baseline level than before but also the few outliers like Serral and Neeb
With Proleague going away and region lock there just wasn't enough money to support the depth of talent anymore.
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MMA
MMA
MMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa
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Northern Ireland26224 Posts
Well yeah that is the reason for sure, military service doesn't help either, it still is the case regrettably.
It's as much a structural problem as a monetary one, top Koreans, most of whom went through the team house experience are bottlenecking the next generation from breaking through, who don't have those high quality practice environments.
Hopefully some kind of solutions can be found to these issues for the good of the overall scene long-term. I love watching the best play the game, but people don't get to that level of play without a structure beneath them that makes it worth the time investment/they have an environment in which they can improve.
Outside of just more tournaments and whatnot, which seems unlikely, I think Koreans need some kind of new Code A. Maybe an Asian WCS branch where Koreans who don't qualify for Code S could be eligible for.
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On June 13 2019 16:21 Ej_ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2019 15:46 neutralrobot wrote:
Trying to rank Rain vs Serral is breaking my brain. How so? Rains vs 99.9% of progamers is very easy :D
Yeah, I think I just needed to remind myself again of Rain's accomplishments.
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I voted Serral because Rain is boring and all the interesting placement matches were done while I was in the mountains with no internet. So yeah, fanboy vote. Prove me wrong!
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On June 16 2019 00:44 Acrofales wrote:
I voted Serral because Rain is boring and all the interesting placement matches were done while I was in the mountains with no internet. So yeah, fanboy vote. Prove me wrong!
Imagine calling anyone else boring when comparing them to Serral.
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On June 16 2019 00:47 Phredxor wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2019 00:44 Acrofales wrote:
I voted Serral because Rain is boring and all the interesting placement matches were done while I was in the mountains with no internet. So yeah, fanboy vote. Prove me wrong! Imagine calling anyone else boring when comparing them to Serral.
You may find Serral's interviews to be boring(he's becoming better, tho) but to say he's boring when he plays, well, I can't understand that.
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On June 16 2019 00:47 Phredxor wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2019 00:44 Acrofales wrote:
I voted Serral because Rain is boring and all the interesting placement matches were done while I was in the mountains with no internet. So yeah, fanboy vote. Prove me wrong! Imagine calling anyone else boring when comparing them to Serral.
Have you even watched any of his games?
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Northern Ireland26224 Posts
Serral just monstered Clem in WCS Challenger with some really interesting nydus abuse, speaking of interesting games
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On June 16 2019 01:21 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2019 00:47 Phredxor wrote:On June 16 2019 00:44 Acrofales wrote:
I voted Serral because Rain is boring and all the interesting placement matches were done while I was in the mountains with no internet. So yeah, fanboy vote. Prove me wrong! Imagine calling anyone else boring when comparing them to Serral. Have you even watched any of his games?
Serral is basically a macro zerg
which is the most boring playstyle imo, despite the absurd mechanics it takes to play it like he does
not saying it's boring to watch serral, but relatively speaking, serral and rogue are the most boring top players due to their clean, oriented styles imo. i'm sure others feel the same way.
On June 16 2019 01:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Serral just monstered Clem in WCS Challenger with some really interesting nydus abuse, speaking of interesting games
I just saw that
to be fair the main problem was clem didn't transition out of cyclone hellion
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On June 16 2019 01:52 BerserkSword wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2019 01:21 Acrofales wrote:On June 16 2019 00:47 Phredxor wrote:On June 16 2019 00:44 Acrofales wrote:
I voted Serral because Rain is boring and all the interesting placement matches were done while I was in the mountains with no internet. So yeah, fanboy vote. Prove me wrong! Imagine calling anyone else boring when comparing them to Serral. Have you even watched any of his games? Serral is basically a macro zerg which is the most boring playstyle imo, despite the absurd mechanics it takes to play it like he does not saying it's boring to watch serral, but relatively speaking, serral and rogue are the most boring top players due to their clean, oriented styles imo. i'm sure others feel the same way. Show nested quote +On June 16 2019 01:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Serral just monstered Clem in WCS Challenger with some really interesting nydus abuse, speaking of interesting games I just saw that to be fair the main problem was clem didn't transition out of cyclone hellion
What are you supposed to transition to though?
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Northern Ireland26224 Posts
Serral is perhaps boring in the sense he’s too good, peak Inno or peak Maru similarly monstered opponents
I find him fascinating to watch as he basically seems to almost always make the right reads and responses, but people have different tastes.
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Northern Ireland26224 Posts
On June 16 2019 03:31 renaissanceMAN wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2019 01:52 BerserkSword wrote:On June 16 2019 01:21 Acrofales wrote:On June 16 2019 00:47 Phredxor wrote:On June 16 2019 00:44 Acrofales wrote:
I voted Serral because Rain is boring and all the interesting placement matches were done while I was in the mountains with no internet. So yeah, fanboy vote. Prove me wrong! Imagine calling anyone else boring when comparing them to Serral. Have you even watched any of his games? Serral is basically a macro zerg which is the most boring playstyle imo, despite the absurd mechanics it takes to play it like he does not saying it's boring to watch serral, but relatively speaking, serral and rogue are the most boring top players due to their clean, oriented styles imo. i'm sure others feel the same way. On June 16 2019 01:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Serral just monstered Clem in WCS Challenger with some really interesting nydus abuse, speaking of interesting games I just saw that to be fair the main problem was clem didn't transition out of cyclone hellion What are you supposed to transition to though?
I really don’t see an easy transition that works
We’ll see how this develops, this is the second game I’ve seen relatively recently where Serral has really utilised nyduses to rapidly relocate units all through the game to the late game.
I feel it’s one of those situations where random scrubs like me saying ‘why don’t pros do x?’ actually have a point. I’ve always felt nyduses had so much potential beyond their use in mostly all-ins, and it feels Serral is starting to really experiment with using them in a more BW-esque manner
You already have the fastest units anyway, you have creep vision, add the ability for your slower stuff to actually teleport across the map and that’s an exceptionally potent combination.
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On June 16 2019 03:31 renaissanceMAN wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2019 01:52 BerserkSword wrote:On June 16 2019 01:21 Acrofales wrote:On June 16 2019 00:47 Phredxor wrote:On June 16 2019 00:44 Acrofales wrote:
I voted Serral because Rain is boring and all the interesting placement matches were done while I was in the mountains with no internet. So yeah, fanboy vote. Prove me wrong! Imagine calling anyone else boring when comparing them to Serral. Have you even watched any of his games? Serral is basically a macro zerg which is the most boring playstyle imo, despite the absurd mechanics it takes to play it like he does not saying it's boring to watch serral, but relatively speaking, serral and rogue are the most boring top players due to their clean, oriented styles imo. i'm sure others feel the same way. On June 16 2019 01:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Serral just monstered Clem in WCS Challenger with some really interesting nydus abuse, speaking of interesting games I just saw that to be fair the main problem was clem didn't transition out of cyclone hellion What are you supposed to transition to though?
Anything except heavy cyclone comps
Tank(or lobs since so many swarm hosts)/Thor/hellbat for example
The effectiveness of cyclones dramatically plummets in the late game
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Northern Ireland26224 Posts
On June 16 2019 03:54 BerserkSword wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2019 03:31 renaissanceMAN wrote:On June 16 2019 01:52 BerserkSword wrote:On June 16 2019 01:21 Acrofales wrote:On June 16 2019 00:47 Phredxor wrote:On June 16 2019 00:44 Acrofales wrote:
I voted Serral because Rain is boring and all the interesting placement matches were done while I was in the mountains with no internet. So yeah, fanboy vote. Prove me wrong! Imagine calling anyone else boring when comparing them to Serral. Have you even watched any of his games? Serral is basically a macro zerg which is the most boring playstyle imo, despite the absurd mechanics it takes to play it like he does not saying it's boring to watch serral, but relatively speaking, serral and rogue are the most boring top players due to their clean, oriented styles imo. i'm sure others feel the same way. On June 16 2019 01:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Serral just monstered Clem in WCS Challenger with some really interesting nydus abuse, speaking of interesting games I just saw that to be fair the main problem was clem didn't transition out of cyclone hellion What are you supposed to transition to though? Anything except heavy cyclone comps Tank(or lobs since so many swarm hosts)/Thor/hellbat for example The effectiveness of cyclones dramatically plummets in the late game
I think the point of Serral’s approach this game was to give himself breathing space and neuter battlemech’s strength in the midgame by forcing them to continually have to defend
I think an attempt to transition to tanks, or hellbat/Thor Serral is happy enough with. Instead of being aggressive to force a tempo based style backwards, he can just stop trading as aggressively and transition to other comps vs whatever the Terran is swapping to off battlemech. He doesn’t have to force an aggressive style to be defensive, he’s dealing with more passive compositions by default and can react accordingly.
Especially given Terran’s difficulty in changing gameplans drastically.
It’s definitely an interesting approach to that particular problem from Serral, I haven’t seen much play of this kind and I assume most pros haven’t either, so I imagine there are definitely better ways to approach it than Clem did, but it looks pretty strong in the hands of someone as mechanically good as Serral.
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Canada8989 Posts
Alright now that we are done with the placement matches time to get back to the main event!
Theses polls are closed
Match 1  TaeJa vs  Solar
TaeJa highlight : TaeJa vs  Zest IEM Toronto group stage match. Game 3
+ Show Spoiler +
One of the best move of TaeJa, a great read on what Zest was doing and a rather good try at defend it (a zealot immortal rush very well executed by Zest) followed by an amazing basetrade scenario where in the spand of maybe 30 second TaeJa goes from a un-winable situation to putting Zest in check mate. He seemed to have known exactly what he needed to do to win it (ignore a probe transfer caught mid-map to focus the production, give the main to lure Zest away from the ramp and sneak everything away, harass the new base from TaeJa
Solar highlight: Solar vs PartinG Dreamhack LOTV championship. Game 5
+ Show Spoiler +
A fairly enjoyable game leading Solar to his first LOTV championship, an expension that seemed perfectly tailor to his set of skills as he keep up his good result at the end of Hots to dominate early LoTV.
I will not lie it is not exaclty the best game ever, but as someone who passed nearly 2 hours trying to win a meaninfull game of Solar that was not him either him doing an all-in or getting all-in, or just dominating the game from A to Z not a lot of them exist.
Solar vs sOs game 5 at DH Stockolm 2015 is also a strong contender for his highlight.
Poll: Who is the greatest player?You must be logged in to vote in this poll. ☐ TaeJa
☐ Solar
Match 2 INnoVation vs Classic
INnoVation highlight: INnoVation vs ByuL 2014 GSL season 3 final. The entire series
+ Show Spoiler +
Now the next two do not really work without at least a little write up
Throught all of 2015 INno was destroying every zerg but never managed to win vs BuyL amazing macro mechanics, including an almost 3 hours series of pure macro mech game in the SSL round of 8. In his final INnovation really pulled all of the move and mind game openning up with six very different builds and while still losing two out of the three macro game he won the final easilly.
It was amazing to see that INnovation recognizing that he had in front of him someone who was as good if not better than him at the standar macro game despite a favorable meta and exploiting his predictability to the fullest, him catching ByuL trying to rush into the standard game with bio fake out or hellbats all-in showed a great adaptability.
Classic highlight: Classic vs Polt Blizzcon 2014 round of 16. Game 5
+ Show Spoiler +
Like INno this one is more for his significiance than the quality of the game (altought it is a great game), when Classic faced Polt at Blizzcon he seemed like the biggest GSL champ bust we had seen since Seed. A quick (and humiliating) elimination in GSL, failling his team in the round and then the Grand Final of Proleague and finally an elimination by the hand of Jaedong in the round of 16 of a Dreamhack that also saw him losing to soO made his GSL run (where 4 of his last 5 matches were played against fellow SKT player) look like an anomaly.
Polt could have been the final nail in Classic career as he came back from 0-2 to tie it up and had a good final map to take it.
The match itself is a great showing of Classic ability to play multiple styles, going for a kind of macro chargelot-storm build with pheonix defense that turn out to be the right call to keep up with Polt agression as he ended it falling back to colossus to counter the ghost Polt made in response to his initial composition. His eventual semi-final at Blizzcon reassure us that he was not a one trick phoney while it would take until his dual IEM and SSL victory to really assert himself as a legit elite player in the eyes of many.
It was also a great showing of Classic determination and capacity to win series from behind (something we saw notably when he reverse sweep sOs and Dark)
Poll: Who is the greatest player?You must be logged in to vote in this poll. ☐ INnovation
☐ Classic
Polls are open until Wednesday June 19 arround 8pm EST
Theses polls are closed
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EPT
