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[GSL] Super Tournament 3 - Day 2 - Page 6
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[PkF] Wire
France24227 Posts
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Pandain
United States12989 Posts
Also if Maru wins this tournament I'd say this is the most *dominant* he's ever been in SC2 history. The obvious counterpoint is 2018 but the problem there is that he never played Serral who was the only player who outshined him that year (and who had the most dominant year ever). During this ~2 months stretch though Maru has pretty much bullied and destroyed every top player - repeatedly. | ||
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FataLe
New Zealand4512 Posts
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JJH777
United States4414 Posts
On November 27 2021 07:35 Pandain wrote: I feel like Maru doesn't normally get bracket luck but he certainly did this tournament - top 4 quarterfinalists are EACH stronger than anyone in the lower half other than Maru. Also if Maru wins this tournament I'd say this is the most *dominant* he's ever been in SC2 history. The obvious counterpoint is 2018 but the problem there is that he never played Serral who was the only player who outshined him that year (and who had the most dominant year ever). During this ~2 months stretch though Maru has pretty much bullied and destroyed every top player - repeatedly. Maru played Serral in March of 2018 and 3-0'd him in a match with $200k on the line. This was after Serral had already won a WCS and got top 4 in IEM being the only player to beat Rogue during that IEM. | ||
Poopi
France12904 Posts
On November 27 2021 09:02 JJH777 wrote: Maru played Serral in March of 2018 and 3-0'd him in a match with $200k on the line. This was after Serral had already won a WCS and got top 4 in IEM being the only player to beat Rogue during that IEM. Indeed (the 200k$ wasn’t on the line directly though since they played in quarters, but still!) And some people argue that Serral didn’t reach his peak yet at that WESG 2017 (but played in 2018), except that Serral lost to Classic at the previous IEM, but managed to beat him 3-1 in WESG, so he was still in his godlike form. There were ravens but other top zergs Dark and Rogue both showed that they could beat Maru at the time, so balance was not really an issue. Alas, TvP was kinda horrible in macro games forcing the terran to gamble with early builds, and Maru got completely blindsided by his teammate sOs, so we will never know what would have happened if they played in the finals of BlizzCon. | ||
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Pandain
United States12989 Posts
On November 27 2021 09:02 JJH777 wrote: Maru played Serral in March of 2018 and 3-0'd him in a match with $200k on the line. This was after Serral had already won a WCS and got top 4 in IEM being the only player to beat Rogue during that IEM. I'm pretty sure absolutely no one considers the "reign of serral" to be as early as March. You can debate where it starts later but that's not the time period we are talking about. Also I didn't mention it but the other complicating factor is that even though Maru was the god of GSL he repeatedly (and sometimes embarassingly - see Blizzcon quarterfinals) lost in other tournaments. This is different - Maru is just winning repeatedly. Of course its still *just* three tournaments - but that's still insane. Anyway, my point is not to rehash the 2018 Maru vs. Serral debate - but to focus on the fact that if Maru wins his next big tournament (esp. if he wins his next two) - I would say that is more dominant than anytime he's ever been (even if his 4 GSLs are more "impressive"). | ||
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JJH777
United States4414 Posts
On November 27 2021 09:46 Pandain wrote: I'm pretty sure absolutely no one considers the "reign of serral" to be as early as March. You can debate where it starts later but that's not the time period we are talking about. Also I didn't mention it but the other complicating factor is that even though Maru was the god of GSL he repeatedly (and sometimes embarassingly - see Blizzcon quarterfinals) lost in other tournaments. This is different - Maru is just winning repeatedly. Of course its still *just* three tournaments - but that's still insane. When people talk about Serral's 2018 dominance they don't specify the second half of the year. In many ways his first WCS was the most impressive. He was never even close to being eliminated and got the same map score as season 2 with a harder bracket. In the seasons after 2 he would go to match point several times. That IEM top 4 was also a better run than his first GSL vs the world. Beating rogue/zest/trap/neeb/impact/nerchio is harder than beating Stats/Dark/Inno/Kelazhur. I still think Maru's 2018 is far more impressive than this current streak (and more impressive than Serral's 2018 as well) despite his losses at some big moments. Serral not playing Maru during his peak hurts his 2018 just as much as the reverse. | ||
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Pandain
United States12989 Posts
On November 27 2021 10:04 JJH777 wrote: When people talk about Serral's 2018 dominance they don't specify the second half of the year. In many ways his first WCS was the most impressive. He was never even close to being eliminated and got the same map score as season 2 with a harder bracket. In the seasons after 2 he would go to match point several times. That IEM top 4 was also a better run than his first GSL vs the world. Beating rogue/zest/trap/neeb/impact/nerchio is harder than beating Stats/Dark/Inno/Kelazhur. I still think Maru's 2018 is far more impressive than this current streak (and more impressive than Serral's 2018 as well) despite his losses at some big moments. Serral not playing Maru during his peak hurts his 2018 just as much as the reverse. I won't rehash the Maru/Serral debate + Show Spoiler + except to say that Serral would have loved to play Maru but Maru kept losing and Serral kept winning | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
Did I get the 2018 debate precisely right? | ||
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Nakajin
Canada8989 Posts
On November 27 2021 18:01 deacon.frost wrote: The most dominant year ever! March. THAT DOES NOT COUNT!#!#$!!!! Did I get the 2018 debate precisely right? You can peak at a certain point in the year (from Mai to the end of the year for Serral, a period where he drop a single series of Starcraft might I remind you, going 70-1) and still be have the most dominant overall year ever. You just need to have a better year than anyone ever had. INno was/is considered the most dominant player of 2013 compared to his peers even if he had a lacklusters back half. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On November 27 2021 20:49 Nakajin wrote: You can peak at a certain point in the year (from Mai to the end of the year for Serral, a period where he drop a single series of Starcraft might I remind you, going 70-1) and still be have the most dominant overall year ever. You just need to have a better year than anyone ever had. INno was/is considered the most dominant player of 2013 compared to his peers even if he had a lacklusters back half. Dude, if you write that Serral had the most dominant year 2018, that is the WHOLE year. If you wanna write he was dominating since May, that's 7 god damn months if we count the December. THat's a HALF of the year. If anybody writes he dominated 2018, then it's the whole year. Start writing half, 7 months or w/e if you don't want to count the whole 12 months of 2018. Especially if you reply with "march 2018 ddoesn't count". Check the thread FFS. What thread, check this page. the last edit> What triggers me the most is that IEM doesn't count for some reason. Do you see where I'm going? If these worshippers wouldn't go into "March doesn't count, nobody counts March, that's not his reign yet", I wouldn't go into these types of posts. hey, what do you know, it wasn't. (the last edit) | ||
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Fango
United Kingdom8987 Posts
On November 27 2021 07:35 Pandain wrote: I feel like Maru doesn't normally get bracket luck but he certainly did this tournament - top 4 quarterfinalists are EACH stronger than anyone in the lower half other than Maru. Maru has a claim to the worst bracket luck of all time after the atrocity that was the 2016 Code A seeding. People were saying Maru looked like the second best player in the world, and he got put against Zest (the best player) in the single-elim Code A. Which led him to lose what would otherwise have been the all-time record of 24 consecutive Code S. We'll let it slide that he got lucky in this one. | ||
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Fango
United Kingdom8987 Posts
On November 27 2021 20:49 Nakajin wrote: You can peak at a certain point in the year (from Mai to the end of the year for Serral, a period where he drop a single series of Starcraft might I remind you, going 70-1) and still be have the most dominant overall year ever. You just need to have a better year than anyone ever had. INno was/is considered the most dominant player of 2013 compared to his peers even if he had a lacklusters back half. I like how Serral's peak starts in May and not August when he actually won an event with koreans allowed in. Winning tournaments by taking out Has in the finals isn't quite the show of dominance it's made out to be, even Reynor (the only other foreigner with a claim to be a top 10 player) couldn't play in WCS at that point. Also people ignore that he lost to soO 2-0 during the meantime (offline as well). | ||
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Xain0n
Italy3963 Posts
On November 28 2021 00:12 Fango wrote: I like how Serral's peak starts in May and not August when he actually won an event with koreans allowed in. Winning tournaments by taking out Has in the finals isn't quite the show of dominance it's made out to be, even Reynor (the only other foreigner with a claim to be a top 10 player) couldn't play in WCS at that point. Also people ignore that he lost to soO 2-0 during the meantime (offline as well). Will you guys ever learn? You won't. Serral won every tournament he entered in the second half of 2018 and didn't drop any offline series single series from that loss to soO(which is not included in Serral's streak of dominance, only the online loss to Neeb before BlizzCon is) to the loss to Inno 10 months later at Katowice 2019. When Maru beat Serral, at WESG, the latter hadn't won a single tournament against koreans in his whole career, despite having already become capable of beating them as the ro4 at Katowice and the third place at WESG show. You could be impressed by Maru's dominance in Code S in 2018(the fourth Code S was obviously won in 2019 and Maru wasn't really that dominant outside of Code S) but it's crystal clear who was the most dominant player that year, it was Serral by any metric. Also, Maru's current performance in November is amazing but his successes don't have enough prestige to eclipse his accomplishments in 2018. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25840 Posts
On November 27 2021 10:13 Pandain wrote: I won't rehash the Maru/Serral debate + Show Spoiler + except to say that Serral would have loved to play Maru but Maru kept losing and Serral kept winning I would echo this, it’s a vibe thing. 4 GSLs is a better achievement, but he’s got a real killer aura at the minute and is absolutely battering the best of the best in all three matchups consistently. Even in GSL across that span he was a killer, but you could still envisage him losing, and of course he lost in other tournaments during that span. Right now, my gut and brain just align into a ‘Maru wins’ regardless of who he’s playing. I don’t think there have actually been that many grimy dominant periods across SC2, to this degree, especially if he stretches it out further. When Inno really hit his stride in 2013 he had that aura to him, Serral had his stellar 2018 and Maru’s showing similar chops. Before anyone jumps on me, you can still win and accomplish as much, if not more and not have that sheen of dominance on you, and it’s quite subjective, hell Inno managed to lose a GSL final while (IMO) at his peak relative to the competition, it’s the feeling of almost inevitability of the result when tuning in to watch a player, and the subsequent ‘Jesus how do you beat this guy?’ feeling afterwards. | ||
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Poopi
France12904 Posts
On November 28 2021 05:44 WombaT wrote: I would echo this, it’s a vibe thing. 4 GSLs is a better achievement, but he’s got a real killer aura at the minute and is absolutely battering the best of the best in all three matchups consistently. Even in GSL across that span he was a killer, but you could still envisage him losing, and of course he lost in other tournaments during that span. Right now, my gut and brain just align into a ‘Maru wins’ regardless of who he’s playing. I don’t think there have actually been that many grimy dominant periods across SC2, to this degree, especially if he stretches it out further. When Inno really hit his stride in 2013 he had that aura to him, Serral had his stellar 2018 and Maru’s showing similar chops. Before anyone jumps on me, you can still win and accomplish as much, if not more and not have that sheen of dominance on you, and it’s quite subjective, hell Inno managed to lose a GSL final while (IMO) at his peak relative to the competition, it’s the feeling of almost inevitability of the result when tuning in to watch a player, and the subsequent ‘Jesus how do you beat this guy?’ feeling afterwards. That’s expected since terran in 2018 was flat out bad and carried single handedly by Maru. Now there are more terrans doing well / it’s more balanced. Therefore if Maru is in god mode he will look unbeatable; whereas god mod Maru in 2018 looked like the only hope for terran at every tournament, but not unbeatable. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25840 Posts
On November 28 2021 05:50 Poopi wrote: That’s expected since terran in 2018 was flat out bad and carried single handedly by Maru. Now there are more terrans doing well / it’s more balanced. Therefore if Maru is in god mode he will look unbeatable; whereas god mod Maru in 2018 looked like the only hope for terran at every tournament, but not unbeatable. His TvT has ascended to another tier too. Albeit there’s been a few TvT killers who have departed the stage. I think counter-intuitively Maru historically does pretty well in periods where Terran is weak vs when they’re strong partly because TvT was frequently taken off the table. It also helps in a prep tournament often being the sole Terran flagbearer. Plus there were rather a lot of shenanigans and gambits in 2018, it felt like Maru was really digging deep to scrape through in any manner he could and taking huge risks that paid off. Now he’s just playing more straight-up and smacking fools. 100% not downplaying his GSL quad at all, just venerating his current level of chops. | ||
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