The group stage of IEM Katowice gave us the biggest surprise of the year so far, with three-time Code S champion Maru suffering a shock early elimination in Group B. The #1 Korean looked off his game, with consecutive series losses to Trap, Leenock, and Neeb sealing his fate. Dark, Trap, and Neeb ended up advancing from group B, with Dark earning a spot in the quarterfinals by placing 1st place in the group.
Meanwhile, in Group A, Stats clinched a quarterfinal spot with a magnificent 5-0 performance. Combined with his run in the RO76, Stats is on an eight-match winning streak (16-3 map score) at IEM. Zest and herO claimed the 2nd and 3rd place spots in the group, advancing to the round of 12 in the playoffs (March 2-3).
IEM continues on Friday, Mar 01 10:45am GMT (GMT+00:00) with Groups C & D, featuring Serral, INnoVation, Rogue, Scarlett, soO and other star players. You can catch up on the games at IEM's official Youtube channel.
Shame Maru vs Dark didnt take place in the earlier rounds. The games were very good still, as much as i ve seen from them, but would have loved to see it on main stage when both had vested interest to win every map of the series
a little disappointing but still super excited for the rest of the tournament! Dark played some pretty sick games and I'm so happy that Stats got first in his group, cheering for INno and Bunny tomorrow!
On March 01 2019 07:32 DreamlnCode wrote: Maru didn't look like he was trying to be honest. Wouldn't surprise me if he was saving his best builds for GSL. Then again. . .
Agreed, just like how he saved builds for next year's GSL at Blizzcon quarter finals.
On March 01 2019 07:32 DreamlnCode wrote: Maru didn't look like he was trying to be honest. Wouldn't surprise me if he was saving his best builds for GSL. Then again. . .
So he was saving his build for a tournament with less money and a group with worst players?
Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
the idea that he doesn't care for hundred+ thousand of dollars and the trophy because it s not named "GSL code S season x" is not very convincing
I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
It may just be that he is not accustomed to long travels, and jet lag. After all, he performed well at weekend tournaments that took place near Korea, like WESG. From what I remember he's never been a guy who traveled to a lot of foreign tournaments, even in WOL era, when there were no regions.
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
yeah it will be super odd and confusing if he wins this GSL
Maru was probably overconfident and spent most of his time preparing for who he might play later on, expecting to blow past Leenock, Trap, and Neeb. Instead he lost, and now he goes home empty-handed.
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
Maru isn't all he has been hyped up to be? We see Maru against the best players in the world every single week in Korea. The hype around Maru extends exactly as far as his results. The moment he loses a match hype starts to die and starts to build around other players who are winning.
That's how stardom works in a community that values good performances.
It works a bit differently in other communities...
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
Maru isn't all he has been hyped up to be? We see Maru against the best players in the world every single week in Korea. The hype around Maru extends exactly as far as his results. The moment he loses a match hype starts to die and starts to build around other players who are winning.
That's how stardom works in a community that values good performances.
It works a bit differently in other communities...
This makes no sense. He literally bombed out of a tournament with a $150k top prize, that's worth way more than a GSL win. "The moment he loses a match..." um he lost vs. Leenock, Neeb (??) and Trap. Maybe the hype should die down a little bit and build around other players who are actually winning.
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
Maru isn't all he has been hyped up to be? We see Maru against the best players in the world every single week in Korea. The hype around Maru extends exactly as far as his results. The moment he loses a match hype starts to die and starts to build around other players who are winning.
That's how stardom works in a community that values good performances.
It works a bit differently in other communities...
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
I am pretty Maru neutral. I am happy for him if he wins, but am okay if he doesn't. What I am more curious about, is how good he really is against the Starcraft field. He excels in the GSL environment, but his dominance doesn't extend beyond that. So we have to ask how good is he really.
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
Maru isn't all he has been hyped up to be? We see Maru against the best players in the world every single week in Korea. The hype around Maru extends exactly as far as his results. The moment he loses a match hype starts to die and starts to build around other players who are winning.
That's how stardom works in a community that values good performances.
It works a bit differently in other communities...
Maru is no doubt a hell of a player. However, the hype he gets is ludicrous and does not match his actual ability at all. Maru's most impressive games, imo, were some of those macro TvZ games when the raven was broken and that's gone now.
The hype never seemed to die with Maru. even after everyone was clamoring for Serral vs Maru, and Maru got obliterated, exposed, and embarrassed by sOs, people still were trying to play him up as some kind of GOAT player, same caliber as Serral.
the supposed greatest player on the planet does not get embarrassed like this in two consecutive premier tournaments
Stats and Dark proving themselves to be in top form. Will be very interesting tomorrow if TY joins them at the same level and we get the three overall strongest players of LotV going deep in the tournament.
And, of course, to see how strong Serral is these days.
Maru is extremely good and had astonishing results last year: he was by far the best Terran in 2018 and he could rightfully be called the strongest player in the world for many months.
Thus said, I think that the fact that he was the first in history to win three consecutive Code S made people somehow believe he was the supreme God of Starcraft. I believe that there were players in the past who would have been more worthy of this feat, but that's just my opinion and it's not integral to this discussion.
What is relevant, instead, is that all the hype blinded almost everyone to the weaknesses he evidently displayed, namely the weekenders and top level Protoss.
The uncharachteristic domination displayed by Maru and Serral last year made us forget that Starcraft is volatile and a single bad day means you get out of important tournaments.
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
I am pretty Maru neutral. I am happy for him if he wins, but am okay if he doesn't. What I am more curious about, is how good he really is against the Starcraft field. He excels in the GSL environment, but his dominance doesn't extend beyond that. So we have to ask how good is he really.
I agree. I think he is a cream of the crop player, but i just dont think objective analysis is being done with assessing how good he is. He is championship caliber but is he really in a higher class than the other championship caliber players? not in my opinion.
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
I've been a rabid Maru fanboy since his prime days so I'm obviously very biased and consider him among the goats, obviously he is an amazing player.
The question I can't help but ask is what is going on inside Marus head when he does the builds that he does. The bunker rush vs Neeb, the three rax into two rax proxy into quick third CC vs Leenock. Its baffling to me, then he goes on and takes down Dark 2-0, (missed the first game, second game being a late game macro) he stomps Dark lategame but seems scared to face Leenock in a standard game without being ahead. Same against Neeb, why not play a safer route, I understand pulling out the aggresive all-in from time to time but Maru goes too far.
It was the same last year to be honest, he kept doing the same predictable baffling proxy builds that shouldn't work but they did. When the games goes long he excelled.
Marus deserved to get knocked here based on his decision making but I wonder why he did this to himself, maybe I'm just a stupid fanboy but I really think Maru is the best in that group and he should have advanced if not for the stupid decisions he made.
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
I am pretty Maru neutral. I am happy for him if he wins, but am okay if he doesn't. What I am more curious about, is how good he really is against the Starcraft field. He excels in the GSL environment, but his dominance doesn't extend beyond that. So we have to ask how good is he really.
I'm glad you bring this up - because a lot of people just assume that Flash was the best terran/player in 2010 but he basically only played in OSL/MSL. How can you judge a player if they never play a weekender? It's not like the best format for determining the level of a player has always been considered to be the starleague format. Weekenders test a fundamentally different set of skills (I mean it's not like they're playing Starcraft in either case), so really you can't say that Flash was better than Light that year, because we just didn't see the other side of the coin.
Maru is still the best player in the world - having one bad day doesn't change that fact. And he doesn't care that some foreigner commentators have been painting an inaccurate picture of the world which would place undo importance on his results here.
On March 01 2019 09:07 Shuffleblade wrote: I've been a rabid Maru fanboy since his prime days so I'm obviously very biased and consider him among the goats, obviously he is an amazing player.
The question I can't help but ask is what is going on inside Marus head when he does the builds that he does. The bunker rush vs Neeb, the three rax into two rax proxy into quick third CC vs Leenock. Its baffling to me, then he goes on and takes down Dark 2-0, (missed the first game, second game being a late game macro) he stomps Dark lategame but seems scared to face Leenock in a standard game without being ahead. Same against Neeb, why not play a safer route, I understand pulling out the aggresive all-in from time to time but Maru goes too far.
It was the same last year to be honest, he kept doing the same predictable baffling proxy builds that shouldn't work but they did. When the games goes long he excelled.
Marus deserved to get knocked here based on his decision making but I wonder why he did this to himself, maybe I'm just a stupid fanboy but I really think Maru is the best in that group and he should have advanced if not for the stupid decisions he made.
I think his decisions in blizzcon were equally baffling. I too wish we could hear from him.
lol people expecting maru hype to die down cause he got had a bad day in IEM after dominating code S for an entire year. the year is still young friends, he's still in gsl ro16, he's still playing WESG in 2 weeks, he still has top notch mechanics, and he's still the same maru from last year. look at the bigger picture.. not every single tournament is meaningful in reshaping the perspective of players' performance. plenty of tournaments left to go, and it would be silly if people would turn away from maru because he underperformed today. i'm sure it will be clear by the end of the year if this is part of a trend or just noise in the data
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
Maru isn't all he has been hyped up to be? We see Maru against the best players in the world every single week in Korea. The hype around Maru extends exactly as far as his results. The moment he loses a match hype starts to die and starts to build around other players who are winning.
That's how stardom works in a community that values good performances.
It works a bit differently in other communities...
Maru is no doubt a hell of a player. However, the hype he gets is ludicrous and does not match his actual ability at all. Maru's most impressive games, imo, were some of those macro TvZ games when the raven was broken and that's gone now.
The hype never seemed to die with Maru. even after everyone was clamoring for Serral vs Maru, and Maru got obliterated, exposed, and embarrassed by sOs, people still were trying to play him up as some kind of GOAT player, same caliber as Serral.
the supposed greatest player on the planet does not get embarrassed like this in two consecutive premier tournaments
The classic "The player I dont like lost in a tournament therefore all he has done so far is shit and people praising him are blinded dont you see?"
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
If he wins another GSL yes, but right now Maru won only 1 of his last 5 tournaments and had disapointing results in his last 3 tournaments. So it's hard to know if it is a matter of underperforming in weekender which he certainly has done across his carrer especially going to the west (understand "not China" where he had multiple wins) or if his dominance is all but over.
On March 01 2019 09:29 herwo wrote: lol people expecting maru hype to die down cause he got had a bad day in IEM after dominating code S for an entire year. the year is still young friends, he's still in gsl ro16, he's still playing WESG in 2 weeks, he still has top notch mechanics, and he's still the same maru from last year. look at the bigger picture.. not every single tournament is meaningful in reshaping the perspective of players' performance. plenty of tournaments left to go, and it would be silly if people would turn away from maru because he underperformed today. i'm sure it will be clear by the end of the year if this is part of a trend or just noise in the data
There is wisdom in this words. However, the hype could be toned down a little without diminishing the esteem for Maru as a top player.
It's stubborn to keep thinking he, at the moment, is the best player in the world after the third consecutive early exit in a Premier weekender(not counting GSL vs the World where he lost in the semifinals).
On March 01 2019 07:32 DreamlnCode wrote: Maru didn't look like he was trying to be honest. Wouldn't surprise me if he was saving his best builds for GSL. Then again. . .
It makes no sense, there's much more to win at Katowice
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
Maru isn't all he has been hyped up to be? We see Maru against the best players in the world every single week in Korea. The hype around Maru extends exactly as far as his results. The moment he loses a match hype starts to die and starts to build around other players who are winning.
That's how stardom works in a community that values good performances.
It works a bit differently in other communities...
Maru is no doubt a hell of a player. However, the hype he gets is ludicrous and does not match his actual ability at all. Maru's most impressive games, imo, were some of those macro TvZ games when the raven was broken and that's gone now.
The hype never seemed to die with Maru. even after everyone was clamoring for Serral vs Maru, and Maru got obliterated, exposed, and embarrassed by sOs, people still were trying to play him up as some kind of GOAT player, same caliber as Serral.
the supposed greatest player on the planet does not get embarrassed like this in two consecutive premier tournaments
The classic "The player I dont like lost in a tournament therefore all he has done so far is shit and people praising him are blinded dont you see?"
I bet you also think rogue is a patchzerg.
It's funny that you name Rogue who complements Maru perfectly as he only win weekenders and has always failed in Code S so far.
The op actually says Maru is great; it's just that he is overhyped to the point his losses seem to be completely overlook and that his fans continue to claim he's still the very best right now in spite of the recent results.
Maru plays on the razor's edge thanks to his godly army control but sometimes he cuts too many corners while neglecting souting and has always been stuborn that combination can make anyone look like an idiot every once in a while. Its good that maru keeps loosing like this, it might make him a better player in the future when he matures a bit more and stops treating top tier players like the GSL ro32 cannon fodder he gets every season.
Missed g1 vs Trap but him winning 2-0 is not actually that surprising to me, he is in the same team as maru and has sOs to give him advice on maru who he probably plays a lot as well. Not to mention trap played a spectacular 2nd game. He didn't show his usual starsense on the other two series and ended up losing both 1-2.
Serral's win streak better not end tomorrow or there might be riots.
On March 01 2019 09:51 Doko wrote: Maru plays on the razor's edge thanks to his godly army control but sometimes he cuts too many corners while neglecting souting and has always been stuborn that combination can make anyone look like an idiot every once in a while. Its good that maru keeps loosing like this, it might make him a better player in the future when he matures a bit more and stops treating top tier players like the GSL ro32 cannon fodder he gets every season.
Missed g1 vs Trap but him winning 2-0 is not actually that surprising to me, he is in the same team as maru and has sOs to give him advice on maru who he probably plays a lot as well. Not to mention trap played a spectacular 2nd game. He didn't show his usual starsense on the other two series and ended up losing both 1-2.
Serral's win streak better not end tomorrow or there might be riots.
yeah I feel like that has been a staple of Maru's play since like 2013, when he's hot he looks incredible but he plays a pretty risky style overall. oh you can bet I will be shitposting if Serral loses tomorrow, actually I will be shitposting either way lol
Wouldn't be super surprised if Serral lost his group too but I feel like he's pretty strong when given more games (explains why he is really good at bo7s) so this format is good for him.
I am neutral about Maru. he is still one of the top terrans in the world, but today he did not have the eye of the tiger
during his reign of terror, Maru was really only 1 or 2 steps ahead of the competition. not 100 steps, not 10 steps, not even 3 steps -- only 1 or 2 steps. you only need to be 1 step ahead to win a match. if you are always 1 step ahead 100% of the time in all the competitions you play, it looks like you're 100 steps ahead
On March 01 2019 09:45 starkiller123 wrote: funny to see all the korean haters coming out of the woodwork
Korean haters? Would you please quote the phrases that made you write that? "Shitposting" would be entitely a fault of your own, I haven't seen a single shitpost; even Rodya's was almost a proper one.
Pointing out Maru lost early again yet treating him as the top player he definitely is not hate. Considering WCS championship like garbage tier majors, that's hate.
Moreover, why isn't everyone praising the insane consistency and level of play Stats has at 27 years old? Is it because he plays the filthy Protoss? Or because he dropped out of the Sacred Code S, much better than BlizzCon and IEM?
As for Maru not taking IEM seriously because he prefers Code S and WESG, why would he even bother to fly to Katowice considering it seems he doesn't like to travel? He could just skip it, Jin Air sent an appropriate number of players to the tournament.
On March 01 2019 09:45 starkiller123 wrote: funny to see all the korean haters coming out of the woodwork
Korean haters? Would you please quote the phrases that made you write that?
Pointing out Maru lost early again yet treating him as the top player he definitely is not hate. Considering WCS championship like garbage tier majors, that's hate.
Moreover, why isn't everyone praising the insane consistency and level of play Stats has at 27 years old? Is it because he plays the filthy Protoss? Or because he dropped out of the Sacred Code S, much better than BlizzCon and IEM?
As for Maru not taking IEM seriously because he prefers Code S and WESG, why would he even bother to fly to Katowice considering it seems he doesn't like to travel? He could just skip it, Jin Air sent an appropriate number of players to the tournament.
2019... internet has been out for a while now.... anyone saying a progamer is not taking a tournament of this caliber seriously is trying to troll you.
On March 01 2019 10:03 Anc13nt wrote: Wouldn't be super surprised if Serral lost his group too but I feel like he's pretty strong when given more games (explains why he is really good at bo7s) so this format is good for him.
Honestly I hope he loses, just so people can start talking about other players for a change.
2018 was already packed full of Maru this and Serral that. What's wrong with anyone else in 2019?
On March 01 2019 10:03 Anc13nt wrote: Wouldn't be super surprised if Serral lost his group too but I feel like he's pretty strong when given more games (explains why he is really good at bo7s) so this format is good for him.
Honestly I hope he loses, just so people can start talking about other players for a change.
2018 was already packed full of Maru this and Serral that. What's wrong with anyone else in 2019?
Only Bunny and Ragnarok would be breakout players; soO, Trap or any foreigner would have their most important triumph in their careers.
I am rooting for Serral to win, going out in the groupstage would be a huge and unlikely letdown; seeing him lose to witness the resurgence of an established player isn't even a very appealing narrative imho.
Come one Guys lets not hide the fact that Maru played absolutely atrocious the first 3 games... Against Trap its kinda understandable they are team mates but the Leenock and Neeb games would never happen if Maru was on top of his game. He was off in reaction time, decision making, engagements and micro. Macro alone wont assure anyone anything if everything else is bad. He wouldnt deserve to advance with his showing, so many mistakes and dumb plays... Its a shame but nothing new with him and tourneys outside of Asia. Lets hope Inno, TY and Gumi can save the Terran reputation tomorrow or whenever the next group is
There is also the fact that current GSL format gives the last year winner a huge advantage. Maru can basically skip trough the group stages. Maybe he had the same attitude here. He seems to shine in bo5/7 series.
On March 01 2019 14:00 RaFox17 wrote: There is also the fact that current GSL format gives the last year winner a huge advantage. Maru can basically skip trough the group stages. Maybe he had the same attitude here. He seems to shine in bo5/7 series.
Bo3 definitely favours an upset over the other match types. It's like with any sport. Any person can play below their level on any given day, and conversely, their opponent can play in a way that makes it seem like their opponent is making more mistakes.
For instance, if Neeb loses badly in both bunker games against Maru, suddenly Maru's back in the tournament.
I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
I honestly think Maru is tired of getting these team kills.... It seems to fuck with his mental state....
( He seemed to be trying builds that..... were more tricky than technically sound.... the type of stuff you would do when your opponent knows your playstyle well....)
After the first series vs Trap he seemed on tilt.... Kinda regained it vs Dark, but it was too late....
Rogue killed him at Katowice last year I think..... sOs got him at blizzconn. Trap gets him here....
Lot of people forget, last years Katowice, Trap had Serral on the ropes... hes due for a big result....
Also, Leenock had top tier TvZ last GSL.......he might have, actually yes, he ALMOST killed Maru in GSL..... if my memory serves me correctly, Maru was saved by a tank on the high ground, from a Ravager ling all in..... But he really should a lost then......
People are just looking for any excuse to drag the Koreans down a notch.....
Honestly, I think Reynor not qualifying for the r o 24 was just as surprising.. Lambo?
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
Plenty of people seem to think Taeja is one of the greatest of all time and he never even made a GSL finals, he just dominated weekenders.
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
Plenty of people seem to think Taeja is one of the greatest of all time and he never even made a GSL finals, he just dominated weekenders.
Taeja is considered one of the GOATs for his ability in weekenders, but if you narrow it down to "best player the world in a year", Taeja was often "up there but no cigar".
After his series vs Serral at HSC, I thought he was going to be the " New, Old member of the Terran horsemen"...
But it's clear, he just had very good TvZ at that moment... like straight up raw muscle memory.....
And Neeb is a GSL semifinalist/ 3 time WCS champion... nothing to sneeze at.... the Serral group is the Death group... But this one was deceptively balanced matchup wise between the players.....
On March 01 2019 11:45 Riner1212 wrote: so if all the terrans get eliminated tomorrow does that mean terrans will get a buff?
It's very unlikely since the group repartitions are so messed up lol. There are three terrans in group D so it's almost impossible to not see anyone of them qualify, especially since TY should beat the other two in TvT and beating one of soO-Scarlett-Dear shouldn't be very difficult.
In group C the most likely outcome is to have only one of the terrans (probably INno) get out of the groups, like 1. Serral 2. Rogue/INno/Solar 3. Rogue / INno/Solar depending on head-to-head.
However if they don't perform very well despite playing as well as usual in the bracket, there might be some tweaks (not necessarily buffs) since Blizzard seems to be very (too much?) reactive lately regarding balance / design.
I'm almost happy Maru lost though, kid was watched a bit too much recently.
On March 01 2019 07:32 DreamlnCode wrote: Maru didn't look like he was trying to be honest. Wouldn't surprise me if he was saving his best builds for GSL. Then again. . .
Agreed, just like how he saved builds for next year's GSL at Blizzcon quarter finals.
He wasn't, he played very well until he met his teammate who knows him better than anyone else on the scene. That's a quite different situation which showed when sOs countered his build like if he was playing with a maphack. But hey, haters gonna hate, right?
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
I am pretty Maru neutral. I am happy for him if he wins, but am okay if he doesn't. What I am more curious about, is how good he really is against the Starcraft field. He excels in the GSL environment, but his dominance doesn't extend beyond that. So we have to ask how good is he really.
I agree. I think he is a cream of the crop player, but i just dont think objective analysis is being done with assessing how good he is. He is championship caliber but is he really in a higher class than the other championship caliber players? not in my opinion.
Well he used to be the best player in Proleague. It's not like he's that terrible in weekenders. (considering Proleague had prep format and ace/all-kill format without the preparation)
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
Even Serral? The best player of 2018?
edit> Fok, double post, sry
Aaaaaaand the bait again. And yes, you started it (again)
Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure deep down you yourself think that Serral would reach at least semifinals in GSL if he tried.
I just don't get it what kind of "Maru builds" you guys talkin about.. He is a one tricky pony... Proxy builds or standard builds. I can't really recall a "new" build maru invented.. or anything crazy like gumiho, TY's marauder + hellbat timing.. when his opponents let him play macro games, he usually wins, because he is maybe the best mechanical player... his micro and macro is top notch. You can barely see him lose standard matches. But more often then not, he lose when things get out of ordirary... Look at last year's sOs blizzcon. Look at yesterday's neeb matches, Trap's all in, Leenock cancel hatch after proxy rax... He also very sloppy with his scouting, or we can call him greedy, stubborn. Many times loosing to simple all ins, because of the lack of scouting. In my opinion terran is also the worst race for weekender, best suited for GSL. It is really difficult to come up with unscouted all ins (like proxy or cannonrush from Protoss, or the Zerg all ins with banes/roaches/nydus), and also easiest to scout it's all ins by other races
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
Even Serral? The best player of 2018?
edit> Fok, double post, sry
Aaaaaaand the bait again. And yes, you started it (again)
Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure deep down you yourself think that Serral would reach at least semifinals in GSL if he tried.
Well I'm not the one who claimed that the best player of the world has to be good at both GSLs and weekenders.
And I said multiple times that Serral is in my eyes top4 player, but hey, let's talk about the best player of the world which has to be good at both weekenders and preparational tournaments. Serral is not that player and Maru is not that player either. Damn.
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
Even Serral? The best player of 2018?
edit> Fok, double post, sry
Aaaaaaand the bait again. And yes, you started it (again)
Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure deep down you yourself think that Serral would reach at least semifinals in GSL if he tried.
I'd also think Rogue would be able to reach at least the ro4 of GSL yet he hasn't done that yet.
On March 01 2019 07:57 Xain0n wrote: I find it hard to think that Maru doesn't care. Why would he even bother to qualify and travel? Hiding builds at a 150k tournament seems unlikely as well.
maru cares. his fanboys are just looking for any excuse they can for his losses
i didnt see his series vs trap, but leenock and neeb straight up outplayed him. maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that maru isnt all he has been hyped up to be, especially in macro games post raven nerf
everyone wants to see maru vs serral but i think serral vs innovation, stats, TY, gumiho have a lot more potential
Maru isn't all he has been hyped up to be? We see Maru against the best players in the world every single week in Korea. The hype around Maru extends exactly as far as his results. The moment he loses a match hype starts to die and starts to build around other players who are winning.
That's how stardom works in a community that values good performances.
It works a bit differently in other communities...
Maru is no doubt a hell of a player. However, the hype he gets is ludicrous and does not match his actual ability at all. Maru's most impressive games, imo, were some of those macro TvZ games when the raven was broken and that's gone now.
The hype never seemed to die with Maru. even after everyone was clamoring for Serral vs Maru, and Maru got obliterated, exposed, and embarrassed by sOs, people still were trying to play him up as some kind of GOAT player, same caliber as Serral.
the supposed greatest player on the planet does not get embarrassed like this in two consecutive premier tournaments
The classic "The player I dont like lost in a tournament therefore all he has done so far is shit and people praising him are blinded dont you see?"
I bet you also think rogue is a patchzerg.
It's funny that you name Rogue who complements Maru perfectly as he only win weekenders and has always failed in Code S so far.
The op actually says Maru is great; it's just that he is overhyped to the point his losses seem to be completely overlook and that his fans continue to claim he's still the very best right now in spite of the recent results.
No, it is the same strategy as the good ol' "Im not racist BUT...." OP is making a bland compliment to then claim tons of unfair and out of place things.
On March 01 2019 18:11 126 wrote: terran no chance.... unfortunately blizzard is not able to balance the game... alive vs herO and now maru tells the whole story
Terran has a chance... Maru lost 2 full medivacs against Neeb in the second game. If he ain't screws up that drop he wins the game.. 9:40 game time check the replay.. he was up 20+ army supply
I think Maru and Serral are both simultaneously over and under hyped at this point. Some people think Serral is a GOAT contender which is absurd (Serral needs 2-3 more titles like blizzcon/iem/gsl to be in that conversation, though I wouldn't be surprised if he reaches that point), others don't recognizes his absurd offline win streak as one of the greatest achievements in SC2 history, even if it ends today. On the other hand, bashing Maru (whose 3 consecutive GSL wins are historic) just because "Korea above all else" fans are dismissive of Serral is quite common, whereas the Maru >>>> Serral case made by some people is obvious overhype.
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
Even Serral? The best player of 2018?
edit> Fok, double post, sry
Aaaaaaand the bait again. And yes, you started it (again)
Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure deep down you yourself think that Serral would reach at least semifinals in GSL if he tried.
Well I'm not the one who claimed that the best player of the world has to be good at both GSLs and weekenders.
And I said multiple times that Serral is in my eyes top4 player, but hey, let's talk about the best player of the world which has to be good at both weekenders and preparational tournaments. Serral is not that player and Maru is not that player either. Damn.
Serral is the first non korean since beta who is the best player in the world, so the comparison here seems a bit silly; he is unsurprisingly playing in his region of birth, there is no Code S in Europe. He might take into consideration to reside in Korea for three months with the only purpose of playing in GSL but it was silly to do so last year and it seems he is not willing to do it this year(at least, that was his opinion after HSC).
Maru is instead korean indeed and he can more easily be compared to his predecessors; for him to play Code S is essentially mandatory and he excels in such a competition(despite not reaching a single final for more than seven years, the fact he was able to win it three straight times is outstanding). He doesn't shine in weekenders, losing a little too often to Protoss and teammates and exhibiting a certain obstination to try to proxy and cheese even when he's the best macro player and would probably win playing it safe.
He played it like someone who was tired of being eliminated from huge tourneys by players who know his style inside and out....
Kinda like Katowice last year.... Maru was dominating the macro games... So Rogue just nydus cheesed him out. Kinda similar to sOs too.
I think mentally he was fucked playing another teammate. If he played standard, he probably felt vulnerable to an all in. It's like he was playing the meta inside his Team house and not the ACTUAL meta....
That was my take anyway....
And Maru WAS the FIRST Terran I ever saw do the banshee hyper flight rotor mech build. In like, I dunno whatever the last year of Proleague was. He did it vs Solar. He also was the first Terran to really figure out Ravens were broken...
Marcus greatest strength after micro/ army control is his game sense. It's usually second to none... but here he was just off, like the 3rd CC after the proxy. He was too in his own head.....
On March 01 2019 18:34 dysenterymd wrote: I think Maru and Serral are both simultaneously over and under hyped at this point. Some people think Serral is a GOAT contender which is absurd (Serral needs 2-3 more titles like blizzcon/iem/gsl to be in that conversation, though I wouldn't be surprised if he reaches that point), others don't recognizes his absurd offline win streak as one of the greatest achievements in SC2 history, even if it ends today. On the other hand, bashing Maru (whose 3 consecutive GSL wins are historic) just because "Korea above all else" fans are dismissive of Serral is quite common, whereas the Maru >>>> Serral case made by some people is obvious overhype.
The problem with Serral streak is that it was mostly against foreign competition, and as we have seen foreigners still get crushed when there are as many koreans as them in the tournament (blizzcon, and IEM -> reynor prodigy couldn't even take out Creator who himself got trashed in the brutal groupstages...). The other obvious problem with Serral, is that his best achievements (GSL vs the world / BlizzCon) happened in a very favorable patch for zerg, so all in all his streak is roughly the same as Rogue 2017, except we didn't get to see if Rogue could win 4 WCS in a row: good form in later GSL side event, win BlizzCon while zerg is in a good spot.
That's already a superb achievement, especially since no foreigner was able to win BlizzCon in spite of KR competition, but it will be interesting to see how Serral fares across patches in premier tournaments.
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
Even Serral? The best player of 2018?
edit> Fok, double post, sry
Aaaaaaand the bait again. And yes, you started it (again)
Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure deep down you yourself think that Serral would reach at least semifinals in GSL if he tried.
I'd also think Rogue would be able to reach at least the ro4 of GSL yet he hasn't done that yet.
Trying and failing multiple times in a certain tournament can't be equated to never playing it.
Serral is overhyped to your eyes because of your disregard for WCS, nothing else; a very little minority of his fans actually overvalue his current achievements because of the resonance of him being a non-korean.
Maru is overhyped because he performs too poorly in international tournaments in comparison to his own Code S dominance, unlike the previous best players in the world.
On March 01 2019 18:34 dysenterymd wrote: I think Maru and Serral are both simultaneously over and under hyped at this point. Some people think Serral is a GOAT contender which is absurd (Serral needs 2-3 more titles like blizzcon/iem/gsl to be in that conversation, though I wouldn't be surprised if he reaches that point), others don't recognizes his absurd offline win streak as one of the greatest achievements in SC2 history, even if it ends today. On the other hand, bashing Maru (whose 3 consecutive GSL wins are historic) just because "Korea above all else" fans are dismissive of Serral is quite common, whereas the Maru >>>> Serral case made by some people is obvious overhype.
The problem with Serral streak is that it was mostly against foreign competition, and as we have seen foreigners still get crushed when there are as many koreans as them in the tournament (blizzcon, and IEM -> reynor prodigy couldn't even take out Creator who himself got trashed in the brutal groupstages...). The other obvious problem with Serral, is that his best achievements (GSL vs the world / BlizzCon) happened in a very favorable patch for zerg, so all in all his streak is roughly the same as Rogue 2017, except we didn't get to see if Rogue could win 4 WCS in a row: good form in later GSL side event, win BlizzCon while zerg is in a good spot.
That's already a superb achievement, especially since no foreigner was able to win BlizzCon in spite of KR competition, but it will be interesting to see how Serral fares across patches in premier tournaments.
Even if you exclude the victory against foreigners, Serral's is still the best offline streak against korean players(the majority of this being top contenders, not Code S ro32 material).
To win four straight WCS you have to be insanely consistent as they span across over eight months; not even considering the level of the competition, being in a tournament winning shape for such a long time is something very few could achieve.
He ascended in a patch good for Zerg, that's true, but he was vastly superior to his peers; only Reynor in WCS reached a final as Zerg during that patch with Maru winning Code S against T and Classic winning super tournament against P. Not to mention Serral won HSC right after a new patch was released and Zerg was struggling immensely against Terran to the point Rogue would have caused NoRegreat to eat a shoe...
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
Even Serral? The best player of 2018?
edit> Fok, double post, sry
Aaaaaaand the bait again. And yes, you started it (again)
Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure deep down you yourself think that Serral would reach at least semifinals in GSL if he tried.
I'd also think Rogue would be able to reach at least the ro4 of GSL yet he hasn't done that yet.
Trying and failing multiple times in a certain tournament can't be equated to never playing it.
Serral is overhyped to your eyes because of your disregard for WCS, nothing else; a very little minority of his fans actually overvalue his current achievements because of the resonance of him being a non-korean.
Maru is overhyped because he performs too poorly in international tournaments in comparison to his own Code S dominance, unlike the previous best players in the world.
I dunno about that, winning WESG and top 4 at IEM seems like a good international performance to me in 2018 while he was winning GSL.
On March 01 2019 14:37 Togekiss wrote: I can admit straight up I am the biggest Maru fanboy, but I will say this: His play today was simply put, flat. He continually made uncharacteristically sloppy mistakes in his games like not unloading one of his medivacs during a multi-medivac drop, or losing important units in a battle due to bad control etc etc. Maru rarely makes these kind of control mistakes, but today, it's as if nothing was going right for him, and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.
It's really easy for people to say that the hype around him is unjustified after watching his performance today (if you don't or haven't really closely followed his games in the past), but honestly, his play today was nowhere near what it is when he's playing in Korea. Maybe travelling abroad just really isn't in his comfort zone, and without his familiar home environment he is unable to play up to his potential? Maybe not having the food he is used to eating, or his regular bed to sleep in really has a bigger impact on him than we realize?
We all know by now that he typically struggles in the weekender format tournaments, but again, for all those out there who are just looking for reasons to write him off entirely, it's blatantly obvious he wasn't on his game today and it was a very VERY bad day for him (which we don't really see in GSL for whatever reason).
Here's to hoping Maru can rebound and show everyone what he's capable of at WESG...
All the previous best players of world are capable of doing well in both weekenders and GSLs.
Even Serral? The best player of 2018?
edit> Fok, double post, sry
Aaaaaaand the bait again. And yes, you started it (again)
Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure deep down you yourself think that Serral would reach at least semifinals in GSL if he tried.
I'd also think Rogue would be able to reach at least the ro4 of GSL yet he hasn't done that yet.
Trying and failing multiple times in a certain tournament can't be equated to never playing it.
Serral is overhyped to your eyes because of your disregard for WCS, nothing else; a very little minority of his fans actually overvalue his current achievements because of the resonance of him being a non-korean.
Maru is overhyped because he performs too poorly in international tournaments in comparison to his own Code S dominance, unlike the previous best players in the world.
I dunno about that, winning WESG and top 4 at IEM seems like a good international performance to me in 2018 while he was winning GSL.
Those were impressive results, there is no doubt he was the best player at the time; since the first Super Tournament in April, however, Maru did not make it to a final in the next four weekenders. It's still more than enough to say that he was the best korean player in and to argue that he had the best achievement overall in 2018(not my opinion but I can at least understand the claim); it doesn't seem appropriate to me to think he is the best player in the world at the moment.
TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
On March 01 2019 19:10 Waxangel wrote: TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
Maru has quite a specific style. Very active with his units, hitting in multiple places at once all the time, never leaving you the room to breathe. It just seemed that his opponents were ready for it this time and knew how to deal with it. And even though his aggression did some damage, he usually traded ineffectively and the opponent just edged ahead, split his army to defend multiple locations and counter attack once they reached the critical mass.
On March 01 2019 19:10 Waxangel wrote: TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
sOs robbed us of the answer unfortunately
It was a punishment for Blizzard retarded rule they invented on the spot.
On March 01 2019 19:10 Waxangel wrote: TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
Serral definitely had not reached his best level while Maru rose to his top form in that tournament; Dark was clearly better than Serral at the time: he reached finals where he lost 3-4 against putting up a much better fight.
However, speaking of international results, Maru peaked at WESG then went downhill while Serral ended the year winning every single tournament he entered; he couldn't face Maru anymore because of the eliminations the latter suffered, even if we had a peek of the dream match during the team event of GSL vs the World.
On March 01 2019 19:10 Waxangel wrote: TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
Serral definitely had not reached his best level while Maru rose to his top form in that tournament; Dark was clearly better than Serral at the time: he reached finals where he lost 3-4 against putting up a much better fight.
However, speaking of international results, Maru peaked at WESG then went downhill while Serral ended the year winning every single tournament he entered; he couldn't face Maru anymore because of the eliminations the latter suffered, even if we had a peek of the dream match during the team event of GSL vs the World.
I don't think we can know for sure Serral didn't reach his best level at WESG, precisely because he went fucking untested in ZvT (minus foreign kids) after that. Plus the raven nerf. Maru didn't go downhill after WESG, he kept on winning GSLs. I don't think we'll see that ever again as long as there as 8-10 top players still in the KR scene
On March 01 2019 19:10 Waxangel wrote: TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
Serral definitely had not reached his best level while Maru rose to his top form in that tournament; Dark was clearly better than Serral at the time: he reached finals where he lost 3-4 against putting up a much better fight.
However, speaking of international results, Maru peaked at WESG then went downhill while Serral ended the year winning every single tournament he entered; he couldn't face Maru anymore because of the eliminations the latter suffered, even if we had a peek of the dream match during the team event of GSL vs the World.
At the same time it's easier for Serral to go for GSL than for Maru to go to WCS.
At the end of the year Serral was qualified for Blizzcon multiple times. Obviously he didn't want to go to GSL. He could have even payed for his stay from his prize money. Screw prize money, I wouldn't be surprised if Afreeca would have payed for him at that time, NoShoe's house was just a benefit.
Maru and Serral again? Maru's already out of IEM and I sincerely hope that Serral bombs out too, so people will finally start talking about literally any of the other players.
On March 01 2019 19:10 Waxangel wrote: TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
Serral definitely had not reached his best level while Maru rose to his top form in that tournament; Dark was clearly better than Serral at the time: he reached finals where he lost 3-4 against putting up a much better fight.
However, speaking of international results, Maru peaked at WESG then went downhill while Serral ended the year winning every single tournament he entered; he couldn't face Maru anymore because of the eliminations the latter suffered, even if we had a peek of the dream match during the team event of GSL vs the World.
At the same time it's easier for Serral to go for GSL than for Maru to go to WCS.
At the end of the year Serral was qualified for Blizzcon multiple times. Obviously he didn't want to go to GSL. He could have even payed for his stay from his prize money. Screw prize money, I wouldn't be surprised if Afreeca would have payed for him at that time, NoShoe's house was just a benefit.
He gets to keep his preferred lifestyle (living with family in Finland) and still gets to win a lot of prize money and be the best player in the world. I feel like there would have to be a considerable financial incentive for him to go out to Korea for a full GSL cycle. (Or maybe he gets super bored and says 'I wanna try winning a GSL' one day )
Weird how a lackluster performance of Maru makes so many people question his performances in 2018. If he isn't that good right now that tells nothing about his skilllevel of 2018. Maru showed to be the best player over a big part of 2018 (and had in my opinion greater achievements than Serral with a longer period of domination facing tougher competition more often, while Serral obviously arose to be the best player in the end of 2018).
I mean, what is this illguided idea that every time a great player stops performing his achievements get belittled. It was the same with Rogue being called a Patchzerg, Byun being called a reaper-abuser. If you dig deep enough, you find a reason to downplay the success of every champion we ever had. Maru was the only terran that was able to do what he did in 2018. Only TY got close for a view months. He demolished great zergs even post raven nerf won 3 GSLs in a row vs the toughest competition there is.
So, yeah, it seems Maru's great time is over for now. But we saw his potential and it's really not that unlikely that he will live up to it again, considering that he never really lost his status as a championship contender after his first starleague success.
Stats 5-0'd his group after getting elimianted from code s. He's the most consistent player of LotV, except him, inno and rogue hardly anyone put a fight vs Serral and people still talk about Maru? Till ro8 he gets 1 easy group, 1 group he can switch players from. After blizzcon something had to change, but we watched maru repeat similar mistakes now at Iem. It's 2019, not 2014-2015 where the competition was the hardest with most players and ro32 in gsl was serious business. You just can't call someone dropping out of blizzcon and iem the GOAT, just becouse he won 3 gsl in a row.
Other than that Maru seemed like he was tired/sleepy, wonder when he got to Katowice and how many days he had to switch his sleep schedule to different timezone. That and he seems like he isn't enjoying travel or weekend tourneys.
On March 01 2019 19:10 Waxangel wrote: TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
Serral definitely had not reached his best level while Maru rose to his top form in that tournament; Dark was clearly better than Serral at the time: he reached finals where he lost 3-4 against putting up a much better fight.
However, speaking of international results, Maru peaked at WESG then went downhill while Serral ended the year winning every single tournament he entered; he couldn't face Maru anymore because of the eliminations the latter suffered, even if we had a peek of the dream match during the team event of GSL vs the World.
I don't think we can know for sure Serral didn't reach his best level at WESG, precisely because he went fucking untested in ZvT (minus foreign kids) after that. Plus the raven nerf. Maru didn't go downhill after WESG, he kept on winning GSLs. I don't think we'll see that ever again as long as there as 8-10 top players still in the KR scene
Well, Serral was still dropping series at the time. And I said Maru went downhill relatively to international tournaments only, it has nothing to do with Code S as he still had to play his first final when he won WESG iirc!
I don't think Serral not going to Korea is a matter of money even if an appropriate incentive makes everything easier; if he went to play Code S last year he wouldn't have won all the WCS in one year. He probably is more comfortable playing and preparing at home unless he feels he has to improve his play significantly like he did in 2017 when he actually went to Korea.
I don't think we are belittling Maru's achievements in 2018 but trying to dissipate the hype there is around him as the CURRENT best player in the world in the wake of his Katowice's elimination.
On March 01 2019 18:39 alpenrahm wrote: Btw, how come Taeja isn´t playing at IEM?
I was just as shocked, this was based on his performance vs Serral. I couldnt believe someone could push Serral to a game 5, ( when he wasnt dropping maps really at all..) didnt qualify for IEM OR GSL!!(?)
That's when I understood he wasn't actually in shape yet, it's just that he had very near Maru-Level army control and superior TvZ, still even after his service...
On March 01 2019 19:10 Waxangel wrote: TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
Serral definitely had not reached his best level while Maru rose to his top form in that tournament; Dark was clearly better than Serral at the time: he reached finals where he lost 3-4 against putting up a much better fight.
However, speaking of international results, Maru peaked at WESG then went downhill while Serral ended the year winning every single tournament he entered; he couldn't face Maru anymore because of the eliminations the latter suffered, even if we had a peek of the dream match during the team event of GSL vs the World.
I don't think we can know for sure Serral didn't reach his best level at WESG, precisely because he went fucking untested in ZvT (minus foreign kids) after that. Plus the raven nerf. Maru didn't go downhill after WESG, he kept on winning GSLs. I don't think we'll see that ever again as long as there as 8-10 top players still in the KR scene
Well, Serral was still dropping series at the time. And I said Maru went downhill relatively to international tournaments only, it has nothing to do with Code S as he still had to play his first final when he won WESG iirc!
I don't think Serral not going to Korea is a matter of money even if an appropriate incentive makes everything easier; if he went to play Code S last year he wouldn't have won all the WCS in one year. He probably is more comfortable playing and preparing at home unless he feels he has to improve his play significantly like he did in 2017 when he actually went to Korea.
I don't think we are belittling Maru's achievements in 2018 but trying to dissipate the hype there is around him as the CURRENT best player in the world in the wake of his Katowice's elimination.
As far as I'm concerned, the rank of best player gets reset every tourney....Like Neeb gets NO LOVE these days....
On March 01 2019 18:34 dysenterymd wrote: I think Maru and Serral are both simultaneously over and under hyped at this point. Some people think Serral is a GOAT contender which is absurd (Serral needs 2-3 more titles like blizzcon/iem/gsl to be in that conversation, though I wouldn't be surprised if he reaches that point), others don't recognizes his absurd offline win streak as one of the greatest achievements in SC2 history, even if it ends today. On the other hand, bashing Maru (whose 3 consecutive GSL wins are historic) just because "Korea above all else" fans are dismissive of Serral is quite common, whereas the Maru >>>> Serral case made by some people is obvious overhype.
The problem with Serral streak is that it was mostly against foreign competition, and as we have seen foreigners still get crushed when there are as many koreans as them in the tournament (blizzcon, and IEM -> reynor prodigy couldn't even take out Creator who himself got trashed in the brutal groupstages...). The other obvious problem with Serral, is that his best achievements (GSL vs the world / BlizzCon) happened in a very favorable patch for zerg, so all in all his streak is roughly the same as Rogue 2017, except we didn't get to see if Rogue could win 4 WCS in a row: good form in later GSL side event, win BlizzCon while zerg is in a good spot.
That's already a superb achievement, especially since no foreigner was able to win BlizzCon in spite of KR competition, but it will be interesting to see how Serral fares across patches in premier tournaments.
The current patch is even more zerg favored, though.
On March 01 2019 18:34 dysenterymd wrote: I think Maru and Serral are both simultaneously over and under hyped at this point. Some people think Serral is a GOAT contender which is absurd (Serral needs 2-3 more titles like blizzcon/iem/gsl to be in that conversation, though I wouldn't be surprised if he reaches that point), others don't recognizes his absurd offline win streak as one of the greatest achievements in SC2 history, even if it ends today. On the other hand, bashing Maru (whose 3 consecutive GSL wins are historic) just because "Korea above all else" fans are dismissive of Serral is quite common, whereas the Maru >>>> Serral case made by some people is obvious overhype.
The problem with Serral streak is that it was mostly against foreign competition, and as we have seen foreigners still get crushed when there are as many koreans as them in the tournament (blizzcon, and IEM -> reynor prodigy couldn't even take out Creator who himself got trashed in the brutal groupstages...). The other obvious problem with Serral, is that his best achievements (GSL vs the world / BlizzCon) happened in a very favorable patch for zerg, so all in all his streak is roughly the same as Rogue 2017, except we didn't get to see if Rogue could win 4 WCS in a row: good form in later GSL side event, win BlizzCon while zerg is in a good spot.
That's already a superb achievement, especially since no foreigner was able to win BlizzCon in spite of KR competition, but it will be interesting to see how Serral fares across patches in premier tournaments.
The current patch is even more zerg favored, though.
On March 01 2019 18:34 dysenterymd wrote: I think Maru and Serral are both simultaneously over and under hyped at this point. Some people think Serral is a GOAT contender which is absurd (Serral needs 2-3 more titles like blizzcon/iem/gsl to be in that conversation, though I wouldn't be surprised if he reaches that point), others don't recognizes his absurd offline win streak as one of the greatest achievements in SC2 history, even if it ends today. On the other hand, bashing Maru (whose 3 consecutive GSL wins are historic) just because "Korea above all else" fans are dismissive of Serral is quite common, whereas the Maru >>>> Serral case made by some people is obvious overhype.
The problem with Serral streak is that it was mostly against foreign competition, and as we have seen foreigners still get crushed when there are as many koreans as them in the tournament (blizzcon, and IEM -> reynor prodigy couldn't even take out Creator who himself got trashed in the brutal groupstages...). The other obvious problem with Serral, is that his best achievements (GSL vs the world / BlizzCon) happened in a very favorable patch for zerg, so all in all his streak is roughly the same as Rogue 2017, except we didn't get to see if Rogue could win 4 WCS in a row: good form in later GSL side event, win BlizzCon while zerg is in a good spot.
That's already a superb achievement, especially since no foreigner was able to win BlizzCon in spite of KR competition, but it will be interesting to see how Serral fares across patches in premier tournaments.
The current patch is even more zerg favored, though.
On March 01 2019 19:10 Waxangel wrote: TFW people forget Maru 3-0'd Serral at WESG on the way to winning $200,000. Yes, it's probably true that Serral wasn't 'full-strength' at that tournament, but that's not a relevant argument when measuring who was the best player in 2018 ;o (I still give it to Serral, but I think it's incredibly close and not at all an obvious choice)
Serral definitely had not reached his best level while Maru rose to his top form in that tournament; Dark was clearly better than Serral at the time: he reached finals where he lost 3-4 against putting up a much better fight.
However, speaking of international results, Maru peaked at WESG then went downhill while Serral ended the year winning every single tournament he entered; he couldn't face Maru anymore because of the eliminations the latter suffered, even if we had a peek of the dream match during the team event of GSL vs the World.
At the same time it's easier for Serral to go for GSL than for Maru to go to WCS.
At the end of the year Serral was qualified for Blizzcon multiple times. Obviously he didn't want to go to GSL. He could have even payed for his stay from his prize money. Screw prize money, I wouldn't be surprised if Afreeca would have payed for him at that time, NoShoe's house was just a benefit.
He gets to keep his preferred lifestyle (living with family in Finland) and still gets to win a lot of prize money and be the best player in the world. I feel like there would have to be a considerable financial incentive for him to go out to Korea for a full GSL cycle. (Or maybe he gets super bored and says 'I wanna try winning a GSL' one day )
But then his fans need to accept that he's missing Code S titles and I believe I am still missing digmouse's answer about his "best player" requirements muhehehe
damn that sucks for maru, hope he can maintain his form in the current GSL. this in no way diminishes the fact that kid is a beast, not only all the shit he HAS won, plus 3 GSLs in a row. a living god. guess even gods have off days. i pray that he wins a weekender so the "MARU SUCKS AT WEEKENDERZ LULZ HE IS BAD" can stfu
On March 02 2019 02:37 fishjie wrote: damn that sucks for maru, hope he can maintain his form in the current GSL. this in no way diminishes the fact that kid is a beast, not only all the shit he HAS won, plus 3 GSLs in a row. a living god. guess even gods have off days. i pray that he wins a weekender so the "MARU SUCKS AT WEEKENDERZ LULZ HE IS BAD" can stfu
You are overreacting, nodoby said he sucks at weekenders but it's a fact(a real fact) that he doesn't win them often.
On March 02 2019 02:37 fishjie wrote: damn that sucks for maru, hope he can maintain his form in the current GSL. this in no way diminishes the fact that kid is a beast, not only all the shit he HAS won, plus 3 GSLs in a row. a living god. guess even gods have off days. i pray that he wins a weekender so the "MARU SUCKS AT WEEKENDERZ LULZ HE IS BAD" can stfu
Maru is really a god for you? You seem just a little bit overly attached to him :D
If you ppl bothered to watch the iem, you would know that Maru/Gumiho/Special/bunny/uthermal had very real chances to advanced, they literally needed only 1 more map win. A lot of games were really close. So even tho only 1 terran advanced, it easily could have been 5 or 6..
Thou if i had some i would say terran openings are really predictable, literally 100% reaper openings no variantion. Where is no gas expo? where is cc before rax? where is 1/1/1 ? where are all the variantion that terran was known for in wol/hots? I personally got back only recently like 1 month ago.. but where are all these differnt openings? Both zerg and toss players are taking advantage of these openings and cutting corners doing aggressive builds.
On March 02 2019 09:55 skdsk wrote: If you ppl bothered to watch the iem, you would know that Maru/Gumiho/Special/bunny/uthermal had very real chances to advanced, they literally needed only 1 more map win. A lot of games were really close. So even tho only 1 terran advanced, it easily could have been 5 or 6..
Thou if i had some i would say terran openings are really predictable, literally 100% reaper openings no variantion. Where is no gas expo? where is cc before rax? where is 1/1/1 ? where are all the variantion that terran was known for in wol/hots? I personally got back only recently like 1 month ago.. but where are all these differnt openings? Both zerg and toss players are taking advantage of these openings and cutting corners doing aggressive builds.
Correct me if im wrong but
That only applies to Bunny. Maru, Special, Gumiho, and uThermal lost the head to heads of the 2nd and 3rd places in each group, so they wouldn't have advanced
The one thing I didnt really like was InControl basically calling Maru " Stupid".
I think hes enjoying Serrals ascension a little too much...
I looked at Marus play from a different perspective....
He practices in a TeamHouse environ, probably mostly with Rogue. When He does his proxies vs Rogue, Rogue most likely defends and still tries to take it to late game, so in the context of the " Jinair Team house meta", him going 3rd CC probably works in practice vs Rogue.
This is why I said he looked to be playing more of a Team meta vs the Real Meta. He was just too in his own head.
That teamhous ed practice is good for GSL, or WCS. Katowice I think you should just ladder relentlessly....
On March 02 2019 15:04 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: The one thing I didnt really like was InControl basically calling Maru " Stupid".
I think hes enjoying Serrals ascension a little too much...
I looked at Marus play from a different perspective....
He practices in a TeamHouse environ, probably mostly with Rogue. When He does his proxies vs Rogue, Rogue most likely defends and still tries to take it to late game, so in the context of the " Jinair Team house meta", him going 3rd CC probably works in practice vs Rogue.
This is why I said he looked to be playing more of a Team meta vs the Real Meta. He was just too in his own head.
That teamhous ed practice is good for GSL, or WCS. Katowice I think you should just ladder relentlessly....
He's just still bitter about his pro career end IMO.
at this point blizzard wont do anything when it comes to balance since there is an equal representation of terran in GSL code S round of 16. HOWEVER, in case if those terrans in round of 16 get eliminated and only 1 or 2 makes it through to the next round then they might reconsider the state of the game for terrans.
On March 02 2019 17:10 Riner1212 wrote: at this point blizzard wont do anything when it comes to balance since there is an equal representation of terran in GSL code S round of 16. HOWEVER, in case if those terrans in round of 16 get eliminated and only 1 or 2 makes it through to the next round then they might reconsider the state of the game for terrans.
On March 02 2019 02:37 fishjie wrote: damn that sucks for maru, hope he can maintain his form in the current GSL. this in no way diminishes the fact that kid is a beast, not only all the shit he HAS won, plus 3 GSLs in a row. a living god. guess even gods have off days. i pray that he wins a weekender so the "MARU SUCKS AT WEEKENDERZ LULZ HE IS BAD" can stfu
You are overreacting, nodoby said he sucks at weekenders but it's a fact(a real fact) that he doesn't win them often.
more referring to the blizzcon thread when he lost to SoS, theres this one fanboy who is like a reverse rodya named dave or something
On March 02 2019 15:04 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: The one thing I didnt really like was InControl basically calling Maru " Stupid".
interesting - i didnt watch the games can you elaborate? i noticed in pylon show after maru won a historic 3 GSLs in a row, incontrol was very nonchalant about it and didn't seem to give a crap at all and was like whatevers. he was more focused on: "are proxies the new meta now?" instead of talking about how incredible the feat was. very disappointing if this is true.
On March 02 2019 15:04 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: The one thing I didnt really like was InControl basically calling Maru " Stupid".
interesting - i didnt watch the games can you elaborate? i noticed in pylon show after maru won a historic 3 GSLs in a row, incontrol was very nonchalant about it and didn't seem to give a crap at all and was like whatevers. he was more focused on: "are proxies the new meta now?" instead of talking about how incredible the feat was. very disappointing if this is true.
he was criticizing Maru for building third CC when it shouldve been obvious that leenock wouldve tried go all in to end the game at that point since Maru dealt some cripling early game damage. it was a really dumb move on maru's part and cost him the game
everyone was critical there, but incontrol is just blunt about things
On March 02 2019 15:04 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: The one thing I didnt really like was InControl basically calling Maru " Stupid".
interesting - i didnt watch the games can you elaborate? i noticed in pylon show after maru won a historic 3 GSLs in a row, incontrol was very nonchalant about it and didn't seem to give a crap at all and was like whatevers. he was more focused on: "are proxies the new meta now?" instead of talking about how incredible the feat was. very disappointing if this is true.
he was criticizing Maru for building third CC when it shouldve been obvious that leenock wouldve tried go all in to end the game at that point since Maru dealt some cripling early game damage. it was a really dumb move on maru's part and cost him the game
everyone was critical there, but incontrol is just blunt about things
I explained all that in my post.
That Maru practices in a Teamhouse environ.... Probably against Rogue, who most likely responds differently than Leenock.
If you know Marus play, hes been doing proxies for a out 5 years now. People act like it's a new meta. He actually turned it into a legit opening......
It's like criticizing Trap for being unprepared for heroes insanity.....
On March 02 2019 15:04 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: The one thing I didnt really like was InControl basically calling Maru " Stupid".
interesting - i didnt watch the games can you elaborate? i noticed in pylon show after maru won a historic 3 GSLs in a row, incontrol was very nonchalant about it and didn't seem to give a crap at all and was like whatevers. he was more focused on: "are proxies the new meta now?" instead of talking about how incredible the feat was. very disappointing if this is true.
He didn't call Maru stupid, he said he played stupid.
On March 02 2019 15:04 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: The one thing I didnt really like was InControl basically calling Maru " Stupid".
interesting - i didnt watch the games can you elaborate? i noticed in pylon show after maru won a historic 3 GSLs in a row, incontrol was very nonchalant about it and didn't seem to give a crap at all and was like whatevers. he was more focused on: "are proxies the new meta now?" instead of talking about how incredible the feat was. very disappointing if this is true.
he was criticizing Maru for building third CC when it shouldve been obvious that leenock wouldve tried go all in to end the game at that point since Maru dealt some cripling early game damage. it was a really dumb move on maru's part and cost him the game
everyone was critical there, but incontrol is just blunt about things
I explained all that in my post.
That Maru practices in a Teamhouse environ.... Probably against Rogue, who most likely responds differently than Leenock.
If you know Marus play, hes been doing proxies for a out 5 years now. People act like it's a new meta. He actually turned it into a legit opening......
It's like criticizing Trap for being unprepared for heroes insanity.....
That is a wild assumption youre making
4 minutes into the game, Zerg is one base to Terran's two and down 10 workers. No Zerg player in his right mind tries to macro back in that scenario. That's pretty much an insurmountable obstacle for the Zerg in a macro sense.
There is nothing insane about what Leenock did (as opposed to Hero). And even if Maru based his strategy around Rogues unique response, that is still really stupid because he isnt playing rogue lmao
no matter how you look at it, Maru made a dumb decision and it cost him the advance to RO12
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
the idea that he doesn't care for hundred+ thousand of dollars and the trophy because it s not named "GSL code S season x" is not very convincing
Despite what you think, most humans in the world aren't irrational and greedy. Besides, he's won enough money already.
I think it's more plausible to say that Maru can't marathon especially if you think about ProLeague days.
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
the idea that he doesn't care for hundred+ thousand of dollars and the trophy because it s not named "GSL code S season x" is not very convincing
Despite what you think, most humans in the world aren't irrational and greedy. Besides, he's won enough money already.
I think it's more plausible to say that Maru can't marathon especially if you think about ProLeague days.
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
the idea that he doesn't care for hundred+ thousand of dollars and the trophy because it s not named "GSL code S season x" is not very convincing
Despite what you think, most humans in the world aren't irrational and greedy. Besides, he's won enough money already.
I think it's more plausible to say that Maru can't marathon especially if you think about ProLeague days.
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
the idea that he doesn't care for hundred+ thousand of dollars and the trophy because it s not named "GSL code S season x" is not very convincing
Despite what you think, most humans in the world aren't irrational and greedy. Besides, he's won enough money already.
I think it's more plausible to say that Maru can't marathon especially if you think about ProLeague days.
i was disappointed maru got eliminated so early but actually its good, based on past performances, he and inno could've been a huge risk to soo's run. so thanks maru, dont worry im sure youll win a few moar GSLs!!!!
On March 02 2019 15:04 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: The one thing I didnt really like was InControl basically calling Maru " Stupid".
interesting - i didnt watch the games can you elaborate? i noticed in pylon show after maru won a historic 3 GSLs in a row, incontrol was very nonchalant about it and didn't seem to give a crap at all and was like whatevers. he was more focused on: "are proxies the new meta now?" instead of talking about how incredible the feat was. very disappointing if this is true.
he was criticizing Maru for building third CC when it shouldve been obvious that leenock wouldve tried go all in to end the game at that point since Maru dealt some cripling early game damage. it was a really dumb move on maru's part and cost him the game
everyone was critical there, but incontrol is just blunt about things
I explained all that in my post.
That Maru practices in a Teamhouse environ.... Probably against Rogue, who most likely responds differently than Leenock.
If you know Marus play, hes been doing proxies for a out 5 years now. People act like it's a new meta. He actually turned it into a legit opening......
It's like criticizing Trap for being unprepared for heroes insanity.....
That is a wild assumption youre making
4 minutes into the game, Zerg is one base to Terran's two and down 10 workers. No Zerg player in his right mind tries to macro back in that scenario. That's pretty much an insurmountable obstacle for the Zerg in a macro sense.
There is nothing insane about what Leenock did (as opposed to Hero). And even if Maru based his strategy around Rogues unique response, that is still really stupid because he isnt playing rogue lmao
no matter how you look at it, Maru made a dumb decision and it cost him the advance to RO12
You should go back, and watch some games between Maru and Rogue....the ones where Maru proxies...
On March 01 2019 07:48 BisuDagger wrote: Maru continues his streak of losing in non-GSL tournaments. If he wins another GSL does it mean he just doesn't care about non-GSLs or is he really incapable of winning day tournaments? It definitely cheapens his argument for GOAT.
the idea that he doesn't care for hundred+ thousand of dollars and the trophy because it s not named "GSL code S season x" is not very convincing
Despite what you think, most humans in the world aren't irrational and greedy. Besides, he's won enough money already.
I think it's more plausible to say that Maru can't marathon especially if you think about ProLeague days.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Waxangel/iem/katowice2019/iemkatowice2019banner.jpg)
Maru suffering a shock early elimination in Group B. The #1 Korean looked off his game, with consecutive series losses to Trap, Leenock, and Neeb sealing his fate. 
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/fN22jLi.png)
