[GSL 2021] Super Tournament 1 - Finals Day

On January 30 2021 20:01 Weavel wrote:
Why? It's pretty good series overall.

On January 30 2021 20:12 AzAlexZ wrote:

that was the only bad game of the series

On January 30 2021 20:12 Charoisaur wrote:
should Super Tournament be renamed to Protoss Tournament?

really strange that they are always dominated by Protoss

On January 30 2021 20:12 Charoisaur wrote:
should Super Tournament be renamed to Protoss Tournament?

really strange that they are always dominated by Protoss

On January 30 2021 20:18 Die4Ever wrote:
omg herO and Gumiho finished military service? I hope they come back

On January 30 2021 21:50 fLyiNgDroNe wrote:
Trap has been absolutely monstrous this season, given the state of protoss. Sure, Rogue, TY and Maru all had dominating wins, but I for sure prefer consistency and resiliency of Trap any day. Fantastic!

On January 30 2021 23:17 outscar wrote:
What the hell, Trap is destroying everyone lately. Another couple GSLs and we can consider him as toss GOAT? For sure.

On January 31 2021 08:05 MarianoSC2 wrote:


MC? Lol
But yeah, not yet. Zest is still ahead overall. If Trap wins IEM, then matbe, and if he adds GSL to that then yeah, for sure

On January 31 2021 08:52 deacon.frost wrote:

Zest won 2 Code S titles and 1 IEM WC title.
MC won 2 Code S titles and 1 IEM WC title.

Both won some other tournaments(like HSC).

If MC is lol, so is Zest. It's not like we have any other Protoss with such heavy titles. Classic and Rain are close, if only Classic won that IEM If Trap wins the IEM he overtakes both Rain and Classic, but he has no chance in overtaking neither of MC or Zest.

Edit> Actually, considering the IEM is online, we may talk about the fact Rain won Code S and Starleague and Classic won SSL and a Code S title. Stats has these 2 titles as well.

On January 31 2021 12:36 RKC wrote:


MC? I really love his attitude and antics. His 'ez man list' comment really tickles me to this day (I even occasionally use variants in my everyday conversation). But *cough cough* weak era....

A pure quantitative measurement of GOAT just don't work. Some trophies are worth more than others. Some premier tourneys are more 'premier' than others.

Top 3 Protoss GOAT contenders would be Trap, Stats, and Classic. sOs and Zest are wildcards (form just too erratic).

I really love Rain, but his SC2 reign was just too short to qualify in the GOAT discussion...

On January 31 2021 17:47 Z3nith wrote:


This is some heavy recency bias. Trap may be in the discussion but no way is he above either Zest or sOs, players who have displayed their prowess over multiple expansions and who have, pound for pound, significantly more prestigious wins than Trap which you yourself say are significant measures when it comes to determining GOAT status. Trap has only won 4 titles which could be considered premier and he hasn't even got a starleague, blizzcon or iem Katowice.

On January 31 2021 18:57 Elentos wrote:

Trap doesn't belong in the top 5 to begin with. In terms of the amount of tournaments they've won AND the quality of tournaments they've won (as Code S and its OSL/SSL equivalents, Katowice and Blizzcon clearly are the most important events) AND the longevity of their top player status - Zest, Stats, Classic, sOs, MC, CJ herO and Rain (not in order) are all pretty clearly above Trap. And that's only individual achievements and not considering Proleague at all. There's a solid case for Liquid HerO and PartinG as well.

To dismiss MC because the competition was what it was is not really fair. He could only beat what was in front of him and so he did. It took many years for another Protoss to finally match his GSL results. And many people were still arguing in favor of Mvp after Inno tied him in Code S wins so that has to count for something

On January 31 2021 19:09 Charoisaur wrote:
Zest, sOs and Stats are clear top 3 Protoss GOATs, their achievements are far above any other Protoss player. The order of them is probably interchangeable though - I think I'd say Zest > sOs > Stats

On January 31 2021 21:22 RKC wrote:


Funny how most people overlook Dear. I don't rate him highly for the same reason as MC. They lacked the longevity over different eras and expansions. Unfortunately, same as Rain (though I'm quite positive he would have reached Top 3 GOAT had he stayed on SC2).

Mvp is not in my Top 3 Terran GOAT. Maybe not even in Top 5. Of course, I'm sure many would strongly disagree

EDIT: Of course, Top 3 Zerg GOAT debate is perhaps the most fiery of all...

On January 31 2021 21:38 RKC wrote:
I'm really curious - what places Stats in Top 3?

Yes, on reflection, maybe I would slip Rain in Top 5. Shame he has left BW as well

On January 31 2021 21:40 Z3nith wrote:


2 starleagues is pretty big

On January 31 2021 18:57 Elentos wrote:

Trap doesn't belong in the top 5 to begin with. In terms of the amount of tournaments they've won AND the quality of tournaments they've won (as Code S and its OSL/SSL equivalents, Katowice and Blizzcon clearly are the most important events) AND the longevity of their top player status - Zest, Stats, Classic, sOs, MC, CJ herO and Rain (not in order) are all pretty clearly above Trap. And that's only individual achievements and not considering Proleague at all. There's a solid case for Liquid HerO and PartinG as well.

To dismiss MC because the competition was what it was is not really fair. He could only beat what was in front of him and so he did. It took many years for another Protoss to finally match his GSL results. And many people were still arguing in favor of Mvp after Inno tied him in Code S wins so that has to count for something

On January 31 2021 21:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I guess it subjectively depends on the criteria that each of us deems most important. In terms of earnings, the Top 5 Protosses are Stats, sOs, Zest, MC, and Classic: https://www.esportsearnings.com/games/151-starcraft-ii
...although given that MC was the highest-earning SC2 player back in the day, when tournaments had significantly smaller prize pools, I would say that I'm most impressed with MC's earnings compared to everyone else's, as he retired back in mid-2015 and is still considered a top earner for the game. (None of the top 10 prize pools in SC2 were during MC's era; they all occurred later.) He was also leagues ahead of other Protoss players during his era.

On the other hand, LotV is a more fleshed out expansion and has more competition between top Protosses, so one could argue that current Protosses might be better than older Protosses, especially if we think that the overall player ability has increased over the past 5 years, as opposed to treating LotV as an entirely different game than the golden age of SC2, with MC, Mvp, Nestea, MMA, MKP, etc.

On January 31 2021 22:10 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I agree with you that it's reasonable to consider the entire lifespan of SC2, rather than splitting up expansions, although keep in mind that your sports analogy doesn't work unless the sport is significantly revamped, because SC2's expansions did have meaningful differences. If chess suddenly introduced ten new pieces, made the game board a different shape, and added in additional patches every month to mix things up a little, then we'd see a parallel. But that's generally not what we see, nor do we see such drastic changes in basketball, baseball, football, soccer, etc., compared to e-sports. It's definitely easier to compare players, even from several years apart, when the game hasn't changed much.

On January 31 2021 22:23 Charoisaur wrote:

don't just look at the titles. On top of his 2 Starleagues + 1 super tournament he was in the finals of 3 (!) world championships and also 3 other Starleagues.
If it wasn't for the weaker era he played (compared to sOs' and Zests peak) in I'd probably rate him #1

now that I think about it I'm pretty sure he's the player who reached the most finals in tier 1 tournaments (tier 1 = Starleagues, GSLs, World Championships)

and yeah he also had a really strong record in Proleague

On January 31 2021 22:31 Elentos wrote:

For Stats it's pretty much the sheer amount of deep tournament runs since 2015. He sadly didn't win as much as he could - should - have, but he's the most successful Protoss of the past 5 years by a landslide. And 5 years, well, that's half of SC2's existence.

That's a ludicrous comparison though. Dear was the best player in the world for a couple of months, then spent the next 6 years of his career trying to get back to that high and never quite making it. MC and Rain were top Protoss players for years on end, both in WoL and HotS. As much as I love Dear, there's just too many Protoss players who were more successful than him over long periods of time.

On February 01 2021 00:09 Xain0n wrote:
I would say MC, Zest> Stats, sOs>Rain, Classic, PartinG> HerO, Trap, herO, Neeb> Dear.
Dear was very dominant for one season and won a couple of championships, he isn't really at the same level of the other contenders. It's pretty hard to rate Protoss in any of case, most of them are pretty clumped up.



The absolute lowest you could ever place Mvp on a Terran list is third.
TaeJa is also a solid fourth and comes before TY, Byun and MMA.

On February 01 2021 00:16 Charoisaur wrote:
For Terran: 1. Maru 2. INnoVation 3. Mvp 4. TY 5. MMA
For Protoss: 1. Zest 2. sOs 3.Stats 4. Classic 5. Rain/herO
For Zerg: 1. Life 2. Rogue 3. Dark 4. soO 5. Serral

On February 01 2021 08:46 Xain0n wrote:


How would TY and Byun quantitatively overtake a player who won 11 tournaments in the span of two years?
I get that "some Premiers are more premier than the others" but you can't pretend all TaeJa has to say is that he was very dominating like he didn't win anything; he has no korean titles and won no world championships but in my book he's still above TY(who is certainly more accomplished than Byun after 2020).

I am a little perplexed when you imply that Mvp has no heavy titles, he won three Code S; also, if being very dominant and nearly unstoppable connected to "quality" to you I'd suggest you to take a look at Mvp's 2011.
I am struggling hard to find any metric for which we could rank Mvp lower than third on the list.

On February 01 2021 02:50 Elentos wrote:
Protoss actually has its success more spread out than the other races. I did a quick count of players who won at least 2 Code S/OSL/SSL or won at least 1 World Championship (IEM or Blizzard). There's 9 Protoss players (MC, Classic, Rain, Zest, Stats, Genius, AcE, PartinG, sOs although Genius and AcE obviously have no business on any GOAT lists) vs 6 Terrans (Mvp, Maru, INnoVation, TY, YoDa, ByuN) and 6 Zergs (NesTea, Life, Dark, Rogue, Serral, soO).

Obviously that's without counting all the other things one might win like Super Tournaments or regular IEMs.

On February 01 2021 11:11 Xain0n wrote:


Yours is a pretty extreme take, definitely not a commonly accepted metric like looking at Grand Slam titles is in Tennis.
If you take into consideration only the most prestigious tournament you are at risk of proclaiming GOAT players who were a non factor for the majority of the years in which they won multiple titles and ignoring completely some others who were a dominating force but just happened to lose in the finals or repeatedly defeatead the same players who were winning your "Uber" tournaments to win titles you deem unworthy.
Obviously, the most prestigious tournaments should weight relatively the most but it should be wise not only to look at "lower" tournaments but also include notable placements.

Even if I can't agree with your criteria, it's now clear why you ignore TaeJa; however, it still makes no sense to me how you could disregard Mvp, the man for which the cursed G5L trophy was conceived and sculpted.

On February 01 2021 12:17 RKC wrote:


My view is extreme? Conventional GOAT discussion on tennis revolves around Federer, Nadal, Borg, McEnroe, etc. For chess: Fischer, Kasparov, Carlsen, etc. In no particular order, of course. GOAT focuses first on the top layer of achievements (and not stuff like ELO peak, length of period as World's No 1, number of intermediate or minor tourney wins, etc). Judging GOAT players for team sports is more subjective and difficult, but that's a different kettle of fish (e.g. still possible to rate Messi or Ronaldo as GOAT despite not winning a World Cup).

I didn't discount Mvp totally. I have reservations on him being Top 3. At highest, he's #3. Why do I disregard his GSL haul? Because of certain 'qualitative' factors - in his era, there were far more GSLs to be won, and he left the scene before the KeSPA elephants came (and young SC2 stars like Maru and Byun truly blossomed). In short, he capitalised on an era that he had no real peers in terms of 'experience' (a good BW player that avoided facing other better BW players*, and faced young SC2 stars still climbing through the ranks without the benefit of BW experience). But yes, I admit my views on Mvp are 'extreme'.

* Edit: JulyZerg and Boxer were past their prime. MC was a BW B-teamer.