[GSL 2024] Code S:Season 2 - Group B

On May 09 2024 15:13 Argonauta wrote:
Hoping for soO and herO to come out, but ofc Reynor is favorite.

On May 09 2024 16:14 HolydaKing wrote:

I mean, which Zerg is doing especially hot right now? It's also that he was playing most of his recent games online from korea, no? That is a huge difference. I'd love to see how Serral would do atm.

I do think Reynor has a good chance to advance here, if he wins against herO it would be huge, but even if he doesn't, I think as long as herO beats Gumiho and soO doesn't play godly, he will advance.

On May 09 2024 20:55 Tsubbi wrote:
zerg is just in such a sad state right now, unfortunate to see reynor go at this point in time to korea

On May 09 2024 20:54 Mizenhauer wrote:


You are underselling how close Neeb was. He was up 2-1 and had a luge lead in game four, but he completely threw the game and it ended with a draw. TY won the regame and Neeb pretty much collapsed after that. If he recalls his units in time and goes up 3-1 I'm pretty sure he advances (i also lb'd Neeb to win).

On May 09 2024 20:56 Durnuu wrote:

soO didn't seem to have too much trouble dealing with GuMiho

On May 09 2024 20:56 Durnuu wrote:

soO didn't seem to have too much trouble dealing with GuMiho

On May 09 2024 21:01 Poopi wrote:
So what was Reynor saying about Maru being #1 in the goat list already?
At this point it’s comical how even during the lowest competitive era of GSL an international world champion can barely make the mid tier KR players sweat (cf. losses to Bunny and GuMiho now)

On May 09 2024 21:02 darklycid wrote:

GIve gumiho some slack he is a gsl chmapion after all.

On May 09 2024 21:03 True_Spike wrote:
Fingers crossed Reynor will make another attempt at GSL.

He does have the skill to go far, but GSL is the hardest tournament on the planet (yes, even nowadays), and he seems to be in a bit of a slump recently.

On May 09 2024 21:04 swarminfestor wrote:


I think Reynor is okay but Serral's fanatic fans make silly argument that Code S is just easy tournament that someone like Heromarine can advance in group stage. Even Serral's chance to advance in group stage is also questionable when we talked about the weeks preparation.

On May 09 2024 21:04 swarminfestor wrote:


I think Reynor is okay but Serral's fanatic fans make silly argument that Code S is just easy tournament that someone like Heromarine can advance in group stage. Even Serral's chance to advance in group stage is also questionable when we talked about the weeks preparation where he didn't contest much in his career.

On May 09 2024 21:05 Pandain wrote:
Brutal, but let's not pretend like Reynor was coming into this anywhere near red-hot. In fact, the opposite. Really cheering for that Reynor comeback, he can make it happen.

On May 09 2024 21:04 HeroSandro wrote:

Katowice is the hardest. This was the toughest group though.

On May 09 2024 21:03 Mizenhauer wrote:


No, it's because GuMiho played relatively standard against soO, but played bat shit crazy against Reynor because he knew that was the best way to win against Reynor, specifically.

On May 09 2024 21:07 argonautdice wrote:

Reynor still charging his chi for the back-to-back Saudi Arabia win.

On May 09 2024 21:08 Die4Ever wrote:

is this group actually the hardest?

Cure, Rogue, Stats, and Dark could be really strong if Rogue has kept improving since I last saw him play

Solar, DRG, Nightmare, Byun also sounds really difficulty given how good Nightmare has been lately (he beat Reynor recently too lol)

On May 09 2024 21:18 Argonauta wrote:


Why so salty?

On May 09 2024 21:22 Argonauta wrote:



Im not even sure what are the sides and agendas

On May 09 2024 22:46 geokilla wrote:
Once again we are shown that Koreans are the best at SC2 (in Korea). "No foreigner is going to invade my house!"

On May 10 2024 01:39 Ciaus237 wrote:


Winning a world championship just requires a different skillset.
Which is why you can't be Goat without success in this format.

On May 09 2024 23:14 Vindicare605 wrote:


It's like calling someone the GOAT of Tennis when they've never won on a particular kind of court.

On May 10 2024 02:07 Comedy wrote:
Serral and reynor are totally not alike as players. Serral has no real weaknesses and is comfortable in any type of late game whereas reynor has always kind of had a hard time with spellcaster control and late game. He's won because of speed and multitask, which wasn't enough today to win.

On May 10 2024 02:38 Vindicare605 wrote:


Serral's good enough that he could very conceivably win a title, but he'll rest on his laurels long as his fans say hes the best ever despite not proving it.

If his fans are insisting that he doesn't need to prove anything else then why would he. Hopefully it should be obvious by now that the GSL still has very sharp teeth even if it isn't at the peak of what it once was.

And if it used to be even more competitive than it is now, that just goes to show how valuable those titles are.

On May 10 2024 03:59 Charoisaur wrote:

Nobody says GSL is worth more than a world championship but it clearly requires a different skillset. So having success in both formats means you have a more 'complete' skillset which adds significantly to your greatness/legacy.
In your last sentence you can swap Serral with Reynor and it would still be true, so it's not as easy as "if players prepare for you it's the same as playing in the GSL where you have weeks to prepare every specific map"

On May 10 2024 04:20 JJH777 wrote:


You probably just mean modern GSL but i think many including myself think Kespa era GSLs were harder and worth more than than a world championship.

On May 10 2024 04:23 Pandain wrote:


Counterpoint: Byun won 2016 GSL and the 2016 World Championship. Which one do people always bring up and is he remembered for? Do you really think the GSL is more important for his legacy?

As an aside, I think the biggest thing this shows is just that Maru's repeated GSL wins even after the prize pool collapse are still momentous achievements. Sure, less than the GSLs before. But people are still giving it their all and it's rare to find a more difficult tournament.

On May 10 2024 06:14 Nakajin wrote:


I do wonder if maybe Reynor is over the hump and not just in a slump. If you remove Gamer8 (arguably a gigantic ''if'') his results in the last 15 months haven't been terrific.

It's interesting because I think in the past players falling off the top (mostly Korean) have largely by chucked down by fans to players slaking in their practice and losing interest (sOs, Inno, Scarlett, Mvp...) or other players surpassing them (MC, MMA, etc...). I feel like it's the first time we have a champion who is so open about his process. Clearly, the guy is still putting in the work and the hours, but for one reason or another, it just isn't ''clicking'' like it used to.

Obviously, everything I said might be horseshit when he walk out of Ryad with a half-a-million check.

On May 10 2024 03:56 Vindicare605 wrote:


Oh yea, I'm the naive one for thinking that a guy that gets showered in praise for being the best wouldn't completely change his attitude about whether or not it's "worth it" to commit to Korea for a tournament if he wasn't getting such adoration.

Sure thing.

On May 10 2024 05:38 Cricketer12 wrote:

Yeah compare how we view ByuN to how we view Oliveira, no offense to him.

On May 10 2024 18:36 Comedy wrote:
fact of the matter is that the community, the people who watch streams, participate in discords, twitch chats, go to events, so on so forth; with absolutely certainty, the majority of people thinks serral is the goat (and rightfully so.)

On May 10 2024 18:36 Comedy wrote:
That's right it's a number I randomly made up that in my eyes represents the community at large; so not the TL.net posters (same 5 dudes that are super maru fan boys)

It could be a bit less, it could be a bit more, the number is arbitrary, fact of the matter is that the community, the people who watch streams, participate in discords, twitch chats, go to events, so on so forth; with absolutely certainty, the majority of people thinks serral is the goat (and rightfully so.)

here on tl.net it's just the same 10 people posting back and forth to each other about maru, even in a gsl thread about reynor the whole thing becomes the main point of discussion because of these people, it's quite toxic.

On May 11 2024 10:22 goldensail wrote:

It's possible that relative to TL, Discord/Twitch have higher percentages of viewers believing Serral = GOAT. Do they constitute majorities? I honestly don't know.

On May 11 2024 23:56 Antithesis wrote:

It is a known fact that the majority of the SC2 viewership considers Serral the GoaT. There is no point in denying reality. This does not mean, of course, that the majority is right, to the extent that there is right and wrong in this debate. Nor does it mean that the majority of people, including both fans of Serral and Maru, are well-informed or fair in their judgment. But there is no question that Serral is the majority GoaT.

To give just two recent examples:

Even here on TL, in Maru's own thread, a poll with n = 181 showed that 59% of the voters view Serral as the GoaT, whereas only 34% view Maru as the GoaT.

The discrepancy is yet larger among the popular viewership. A poll carried out by Lowko on YouTube, with a stated n = 27K (can this be right?), shows that 76% of the voters see Serral as the GoaT, whereas only 17% voted for Maru.

Furthermore, many public figures are on record calling Serral the GoaT. This includes both pros and literal SC2 world champions, like Byun and Reynor, and many popular casters.

Once more, it is of course true that the majority opinion is not necessarily right. But there is absolutely no doubt about what the majority opinion is.

On May 12 2024 00:58 goldensail wrote:


I can accept whatever a poll's result may be for what is - a popular vote showing the participants' views.

But bear in mind both your examples are for English speaking audiences, who are probably more likely to vote for Serral. If the poll had been available in Korean, Chinese, etc., are you "absolutely certain" that the result would be the same?

On May 12 2024 02:03 Nakajin wrote:


I mean, come on. Saying that there are communities out there that we don't really interact with who may or may not have a different opinion on the question isn't really a response. It's basically asking for impossible evidence. There are a good number of indications that point to Serral being considered the GoaT by a majority of people in our SC2 world, some of which Antithesis produces.

Anyway, just because a subjective opinion is popular, you don't have to agree with it.

On May 11 2024 23:56 Antithesis wrote:

It is a known fact that the majority of the SC2 viewership considers Serral the GoaT. There is no point in denying reality. This does not mean, of course, that the majority is right, to the extent that there is right and wrong in this debate. Nor does it mean that the majority of people, including both fans of Serral and Maru, are well-informed or fair in their judgment. But there is no question that Serral is the majority GoaT.

To give just two recent examples:

Even here on TL, in Maru's own thread, a poll with n = 181 showed that 59% of the voters view Serral as the GoaT, whereas only 34% view Maru as the GoaT.

The discrepancy is yet larger among the popular viewership. A poll carried out by Lowko on YouTube, with a stated n = 27K (can this be right?), shows that 76% of the voters see Serral as the GoaT, whereas only 17% voted for Maru.

Furthermore, many public figures are on record calling Serral the GoaT. This includes both pros and literal SC2 world champions, like Byun and Reynor, and many popular casters.

Once more, it is of course true that the majority opinion is not necessarily right. But there is absolutely no doubt about what the majority opinion is.

On May 12 2024 00:58 goldensail wrote:


I can accept whatever a poll's result may be for what is - a popular vote showing the participants' views.

But bear in mind both your examples are for English speaking audiences, who are probably more likely to vote for Serral. If the poll had been available in Korean, Chinese, etc., are you "absolutely certain" that the result would be the same?

On May 12 2024 02:58 Charoisaur wrote:

Fact is that english-speaking community is likely to be biased towards foreigners due to casters always hyping them up etc.

On May 12 2024 03:26 Antithesis wrote:


I have cited two recent international polls with considerable sample sizes, showing that the majority considers Serral the GoaT. It's funny that now that the original point has been demonstrated, the immediate reaction is to move the goalpost and to suddenly make it about specific sub-communities.

If you are of the conviction that the Chinese and the Korean communities are substantially different from the rest of the international community in their perceptions of the GoaT, then how about you provide evidence for your claims?

From what I've read, I'd be surprised if there were significant differences. To cite evidence, unlike you: SCBoy, the flagship production team of the Chinese community (the team behind WTL and Master's Coliseum), has literally and publicly called Serral the GoaT on at least three occasions, namely here, here, and here. But again, you are welcome to produce evidence to the contrary. Just don't deny everything that conflicts with your pre-existing beliefs.

On May 12 2024 03:23 Poopi wrote:

Yeah I am very curious about this, I have never heard such a thing.
As for Reynor, he is particularly biased against Maru so I wouldn’t particularly value what he has to say about who the goat is, at least not more than any other foreigner. Even if he won high latency world championships.

On May 12 2024 08:39 goldensail wrote:


If you're familiar with logical reasoning - I never claimed with the inclusion of non-English speaking audiences the poll results will be different/Maru-favored. I DID question the validity of the conviction that the majority of the SC2 community consider Serral to be the GOAT based on a couple of casual English-language polls. To support my questioning, I gave an example of why that might not be the case e.g. if the polling included non-English audiences (but frankly there could be others e.g. what was the race composition of the participants?). The burden of proof is on my opponents in this debate for making the claim, not me.

Finally, did you know both SCBoys (Huang and Sun) are Zergs?

On May 12 2024 09:37 Nakajin wrote:
They did a video a couple of Katowice ago (or maybe it was a season finale?) where they asked who was the GOAT, a good number of Korean said it was Serral, but I can't say I remember ByuN in particular. Some people kicked it out of bound, I think Maru said it was Rogue and Dark and I think Heromarine said Maru.

On May 12 2024 08:39 goldensail wrote:
If you're familiar with logical reasoning - I never claimed with the inclusion of non-English speaking audiences the poll results will be different/Maru-favored. I DID question the validity of the conviction that the majority of the SC2 community consider Serral to be the GOAT based on a couple of casual English-language polls. To support my questioning, I gave an example of why that might not be the case e.g. if the polling included non-English audiences (but frankly there could be others e.g. what was the race composition of the participants?). The burden of proof is on my opponents in this debate for making the claim, not me.

On May 12 2024 08:39 goldensail wrote:
Finally, did you know both SCBoys (Huang and Sun) are Zergs?

On May 12 2024 10:34 Antithesis wrote:

Yeah, ByuN, like some other Koreans, have expressed their view of Serral as the GoaT in pre-show events and other interviews over the years. I think ByuN's most recent reference to this was his bowing to Serral (in jest, of course) on stage at Katowice 2024.


Everyone knows that every single conclusion ever drawn from any limited sample can be questioned. This is not a profound insight. There is also the chance, however miniscule, that all persons on earth, except those who have participated in the polls, think that Harstem is the GoaT. And yes, there is also the chance that the Chinese and the Korean communities have views totally opposite to that of the international community. If this is your point, we can all happily agree on that. But from the evidence available, there is no reason to suppose it is the case. Again, feel free to provide statistics to the contary if you know any.


Yes, every single piece of evidence can be nitpicked to death and viewed as the result of some inherent bias. Did you know that Zerg is the least-played race, so Serral is actually disadvantaged in polls? But this is silly, and if only one side provides any evidence at all, the whole discussion is moot anyway.

On May 12 2024 18:30 Poopi wrote:



Yeah I am not surprised Maru said Rogue or Dark either, that’s why no matter the achievements of players you can’t really take their opinion on such a subject very seriously, since they are pro players competing against each other.

Maru said in one of his WCS signature series that he didn’t understand back then why Rogue had that much success (in LotV) while he on the other hand struggled to get meaningful results. Since he looked up to Rogue for so long, it was his teammate, he helped him practice etc. he is biased towards Rogue like Artosis is.

On the other hand, ByuN has been in a foreign team since forever so he is biased towards the foreigner opinion (aka Serral).

Also there is no jab against Reynor? His WCs were high latency: Katowice 2021 was online, and gamers8 the servers were far from the venue.

On May 12 2024 19:43 goldensail wrote:
Serral Fan A: 90% of people hate tofu. Yeah I made that up, but that's definitely the case.
Serral Fan B: here's a poll, 60% of people hate tofu, so absolutely no doubt
Me: but you only polled 100 Americans. There are also Asians
Serral Fan C: come on. Saying that there are communities out there that we don't really interact with who may or may not have a different opinion is not a response
Me: if your conclusion is majority of Americans hate tofu I would've been fine
Serral Fan B: you're moving the goal post. If you believe Asians are different show the stats. PFChang hates tofu and he owns a restaurant chain you know.
Me: guys you made a claim so burden of proof is on you. You know PFChang is allergic to soybean right?
Serral Fan B: you can always nitpick
Serral Fan C: The proof you ask for obviously dosen't exist

On May 12 2024 19:43 goldensail wrote:
Serral Fan A: 90% of people hate tofu. Yeah I made that up, but that's definitely the case.
Serral Fan B: here's a poll, 60% of people hate tofu, so absolutely no doubt
Me: but you only polled 100 Americans. There are also Asians
Serral Fan C: come on. Saying that there are communities out there that we don't really interact with who may or may not have a different opinion is not a response
Me: if your conclusion is majority of Americans hate tofu I would've been fine
Serral Fan B: you're moving the goal post. If you believe Asians are different show the stats. PFChang hates tofu and he owns a restaurant chain you know.
Me: guys you made a claim so burden of proof is on you. You know PFChang is allergic to soybean right?
Serral Fan B: you can always nitpick
Serral Fan C: The proof you ask for obviously dosen't exist

On May 12 2024 21:30 Nakajin wrote:


Jesus fucking Christ this interaction has been one of my most unpleasant in a long time. I don't know why I bothered sticking myself in this debate, it always ends up like this. It was a fun GSL day too...

Oh and by the way Maru is my personal GOAT.