On September 15 2018 06:41 RandomOnlyTheHumanLf wrote: In GSL you have to compete with 20 S-class players
It's pretty hard finding 20 S-Class players in GSL Season 3, that are, without a doubt, above serrals level. But serral should not be the point here. I think it's kind of stupid to compare the weekend-format of a WCS with the format of a GSL, where you can practice for days up to a certain point for ONE matchup with at least 4 maps, while you play at least 17 maps in 72 hours for winning a WCS.
I am not saying that one format has a higher skill ceiling than the other, altough i think that koreans could struggle with a regular weekend-format, i'm just saying that this is far from being comparable.
€dit: @ topic: I really hope, TY wins, but the voice in me knows it's gonna be maru. Hoping for a good time
It's pretty hard finding 20 S-Class players in GSL Season 3, that are, without a doubt, above serrals level. But serral should not be the point here. I think it's kind of stupid to compare the weekend-format of a WCS with the format of a GSL, where you can practice for days up to a certain point for ONE matchup with at least 4 maps, while you play at least 17 maps in 72 hours for winning a WCS.
I am not saying that one format has a higher skill ceiling than the other, altough i think that koreans could struggle with a regular weekend-format, i'm just saying that this is far from being comparable.
If you ask me about current Serral level, I wouldn't dare to point 20 GSL players. But compared to rest of top foreigners? Absolutely yes.
And you can simply compare WCS and GSL with a unique term called 'region lock'.
And you are true about one format setting like WCS Circuit is more hard to predict and rely on real basic skills.
But there were already 2 Big Premier tournament with huge prices happened this year with IEM World championship and WESG. And did Koreans struggle? They just dominated it.
On September 15 2018 05:15 Waxangel wrote: This talk reminds me a bit of Flash at four titles, where ppl got caught up about him needing five, even though his sheer dominance was unprecedented.
Which is funny considering that Flash had to beat Jaedong to get there while maru has no real rival (which might hurt him tbh)
totally inconsistent tho
if you think Flash should be rewarded for beating Jaedong, then Jaedong should be rewarded for having to play Flash (and beating him once!)
But according to idiotic bonjwa-theory, Savior (4 titles) is a bonjwa and Jaedong is not because Jaedong (5 titles) wasn't 'dominant' enough. This is the generally accepted 'fan-logic' back when bonjwa-theory was at its peak of popularity in 2008~2009.
Anyway this whole line of thought is generally idiotic. Korean fans harping on about bonjwa-theory after 2010-ish—partly due to Flash and partly I hope because they realized bonjwa shit is fucking stupid. It's an awful relic that's stuck around in the foreign scene for some god-forsaken reason.
On September 14 2018 21:52 Dave4 wrote: Shocking that the fact Maru is in the only Korean team house left is continually overlooked in these posts.
The rise of the team house is generally considered the primary conduit for the Korean-Foreigner gap that built up in the Broodwar/SC2 scenes. Nowhere else was replicating a situation where the player simply has more hours to train, more eyes to analyse their play, more brains to come up with strategies, and more teammates to practice against their opponents.
I'm not going to say Maru is bad, he is clearly an excellent player but how can this be continually ignored?
Of course he has a massive upper edge over every other player in the scene right now. In the Korean tournament which is specifically designed to be over a long period (giving time for coaches and teammates to help practice and strategise against his opponents), Maru simply has a very distinct upper hand now which you can't really ignore while saying that he is having the most dominant run in SC2.
Meanwhile, Serral has taken 4 tournament in a row (Maru only has 2), in a tournament with more rounds and players (so more opportunities to falter) and over a much shorter time (so fatigue comes into play). Moreover, Serral won the H2H at GSLvWorld when the stakes were actually evened.
There's no doubt that Maru is currently the strongest Korean, and Serral is the strongest World player. The difference is Serral is doing it without help or handicaps.
TY will take this 4-2.
I am not saying Serral is bad or anything, he is truly the biggest threat to koreans from a non korean. But if you say something like "Serral has taken 4 tournament in a row (Maru only has 2)" you are just being delusional. Apart form Serral and Neeb, anybody who plays in WCS would stuggle to get to Ro8 in Code S.
On September 14 2018 22:24 Lgnarrow wrote: "Maru is one series away from winning a third consecutive Code S championship and being crowned the greatest SC2 player of all time."
C'mon, even if he wins this and blizzcon he will not be the greatest.
Agreed but for some reason lots of people don't want to accept Inno as the Goat. I don't know if they find him too boring or his playstyle isn't flashy enough or what but for some reason those people try everything to disregard his achievements and put other less accomplished players above him. It's no surprise that they use this opportunity of Maru having a hot streak to advertise him as the new Goat and hope the recency bias is strong enough that people fall for it.
I am not even getting into playstyle, strategy, mindgames etc. Lets break things down between Inno and Maru in terms of titles.
Inno has 4 GSL titles out of which one is GSL vs the World, so lets say 3 code S titles in a span of what 5 years? Maru is competing to get the same number of code S titles in ONE year alone. That does not diminish Inno's titles for sure.
In a game as cutthroat as starcraft, there's a reason winning back to back code is considered one of the greatest feats. Inno never looked as on top, as cheese proof, meta defining as Maru has alone looked this year already.
For example between Mvp and MMA, Mvp had the dominance in Wings while MMA ahs had the consistentcy getting championships in each expansion etc. but MMA is not even considered close to Mvp in terms of overall greatness. Same logic applies between Maru and Innovation.
On September 15 2018 05:15 Waxangel wrote: This talk reminds me a bit of Flash at four titles, where ppl got caught up about him needing five, even though his sheer dominance was unprecedented.
Which is funny considering that Flash had to beat Jaedong to get there while maru has no real rival (which might hurt him tbh)
totally inconsistent tho
if you think Flash should be rewarded for beating Jaedong, then Jaedong should be rewarded for having to play Flash (and beating him once!)
But according to idiotic bonjwa-theory, Savior (4 titles) is a bonjwa and Jaedong is not because Jaedong (5 titles) wasn't 'dominant' enough. This is the generally accepted 'fan-logic' back when bonjwa-theory was at its peak of popularity in 2008~2009.
Anyway this whole line of thought is generally idiotic. Korean fans harping on about bonjwa-theory after 2010-ish—partly due to Flash and partly I hope because they realized bonjwa shit is fucking stupid. It's an awful relic that's stuck around in the foreign scene for some god-forsaken reason.
I am just saying it's funny people didn't believe in flash being a bonjwa or whatever term one wants to use for a really dominant player when he had to beat JD consistently who was such a beast himself. Maru on the other hand plays a different player every final and none of them are really comparable to JD here.
Personally i don't care too much how we describe this era of dominance, it certainly exists and it's awesome to watch (especially as a maru fan ofc), i think people just wanna use the term bonjwa because it's already a starcraft term and it also sounds good phonetically ^^
On September 15 2018 05:15 Waxangel wrote: This talk reminds me a bit of Flash at four titles, where ppl got caught up about him needing five, even though his sheer dominance was unprecedented.
Which is funny considering that Flash had to beat Jaedong to get there while maru has no real rival (which might hurt him tbh)
totally inconsistent tho
if you think Flash should be rewarded for beating Jaedong, then Jaedong should be rewarded for having to play Flash (and beating him once!)
But according to idiotic bonjwa-theory, Savior (4 titles) is a bonjwa and Jaedong is not because Jaedong (5 titles) wasn't 'dominant' enough. This is the generally accepted 'fan-logic' back when bonjwa-theory was at its peak of popularity in 2008~2009.
Anyway this whole line of thought is generally idiotic. Korean fans harping on about bonjwa-theory after 2010-ish—partly due to Flash and partly I hope because they realized bonjwa shit is fucking stupid. It's an awful relic that's stuck around in the foreign scene for some god-forsaken reason.
I am just saying it's funny people didn't believe in flash being a bonjwa or whatever term one wants to use for a really dominant player when he had to beat JD consistently who was such a beast himself. Maru on the other hand plays a different player every final and none of them are really comparable to JD here.
Personally i don't care too much how we describe this era of dominance, it certainly exists and it's awesome to watch (especially as a maru fan ofc), i think people just wanna use the term bonjwa because it's already a starcraft term and it also sounds good phonetically ^^
Completely agreed both as a Maru fan and a fan of Starcraft
If you read the book The Starcraft Bible theres a whole beautiful chapter dedicated to the concept of a rivalry, how it influences and changes the meta, the rest of the competition and so on. The whole chapter is based on Flash vs Jaedong and their destinies colliding.
On September 15 2018 09:16 Morbidius wrote: Fun fact: Innovation never made 2 consecutive round of 8's in the GSL, the very tournament Maru is about to sweep for the third time.
He did in 2012-2013, but he didn't win any of them.
In the years he's actually won and dominated (2014,2015,2017), he's never made ro8 twice in a row.
Maru however has made ro8/4 a disgusting number of times, often not only consecutively but as the only terran in them.
It's pretty hard finding 20 S-Class players in GSL Season 3, that are, without a doubt, above serrals level. But serral should not be the point here. I think it's kind of stupid to compare the weekend-format of a WCS with the format of a GSL, where you can practice for days up to a certain point for ONE matchup with at least 4 maps, while you play at least 17 maps in 72 hours for winning a WCS.
I am not saying that one format has a higher skill ceiling than the other, altough i think that koreans could struggle with a regular weekend-format, i'm just saying that this is far from being comparable.
If you ask me about current Serral level, I wouldn't dare to point 20 GSL players. But compared to rest of top foreigners? Absolutely yes.
And you can simply compare WCS and GSL with a unique term called 'region lock'.
And you are true about one format setting like WCS Circuit is more hard to predict and rely on real basic skills.
But there were already 2 Big Premier tournament with huge prices happened this year with IEM World championship and WESG. And did Koreans struggle? They just dominated it.
My eye was drawn to Maru back in his Prime days. My good buddy who plays and watches SC2 with me would always say things like, "Why do you like Maru so much? What is it about him that makes him good, because he's not really winning much?" My buddy never played the Terran race, so maybe he just didn't "get it" when he watched Maru, I'm not sure...
Now after all these years of me never shutting up about Maru, this friend of mine is beginning to understand what it was I saw in Maru all those years ago - and I'm very very content seeing his true potential finally realized.
Because I've always believed in Maru's sheer skill and ability, I would love for him to take the GSL 3-peat and then Blizzcon, just to cement himself as not only the guy with the most overwhelmingly consistent period of dominance this game has ever seen, but to become the one true GOAT (yes, I know there are those of you who insist on this going to MVP or INno, but let's be real now folks, with the level of play this game is at after all these years, only the best remain in Korea - and look how badly Maru is humiliating them at this point).
As others have pointed out, having a few more trophies under your belt over the long-term kind of means squat compared to what it is Maru is very well about to accomplish in this year alone... and that's without mentioning his previous Starleague wins and proleague record etc etc.
Of course I know we all won't agree, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that if Maru takes this GSL + Blizzcon we will EVER see this kind of run ever again.
Serral is the only foreigner same level as top Koreans. And all foreigners except Serral did not even get a chance to make ro4.
And GSL vs World was much less important tournament in prize wise, only was about $94000 prize pool while both IEM world championship and WESG were about $400000 each. And that's why I said 'Big' premier tournaments
On September 15 2018 09:16 Morbidius wrote: Fun fact: Innovation never made 2 consecutive round of 8's in the GSL, the very tournament Maru is about to sweep for the third time.
He did in 2012-2013, but he didn't win any of them.
In the years he's actually won and dominated (2014,2015,2017), he's never made ro8 twice in a row.
Maru however has made ro8/4 a disgusting number of times, often not only consecutively but as the only terran in them.
He made consecutive ro8 from GSL 2014 Season 3 to 2015 Season 1...
The Inno hate is really getting out of hand..........
EPT
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