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SC2 Power Rank: March 2019 - Page 9

Forum Index > SC2 General
231 CommentsPost a Reply
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deacon.frost
Profile Joined February 2013
Czech Republic12129 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-03-10 12:29:47
March 10 2019 12:25 GMT
#161
On March 10 2019 02:05 NotSoHappy wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 09 2019 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:32 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:10 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 21:43 MarianoSC2 wrote:
My only issue with this list is that Gumi is in it. Should have been Rogue. And TY is too low.
Otherwise based on the circumstances and the number of relevant events so far its a good ranking don't understand so many people bashing it.
I guess Serral fan boys want to keep they reputation of the most deluded group of people ever. GJ in that regard


Have you looked at the results of that astonishing pool, "Who's most deluded: Serral fanboys or Korean Elitists?" ?

You may not support the opinion that Serral should be at #1 this power ranking but you should at least understand there is a strong case for it, casually insisting on this "delusion" regarding the most successful player in 2018(according to TL, you know) and the best foreigner in history is frankly out of place.

There is a strong case for it but saying "Serral must be first and every other opinion is just dishonest and disrespecting him" is just bullshit.
Personally Serral still seems like the best player to me but given his lack of recent results (Blizzcon was 3 months ago) I think it's completely reasonable to put the player that has won the only big tournament this year at the top.
Not sure what's there to get upset about...


I am personally not upset as you might notice, I think Serral should figure as first in this list but soO is understandable.
People overreacting are probably frustrated by the fact Serral never figured as #1 in a power ranking despite totally deserving it(it would have been unanimous for HSC, but TL's writers decided to make a humurous one instead).
You are basically right here.


Yeah TL writers totally made a humorous PR for HSC to avoid putting Serral in first.
I don't understand what's the big deal about him never being #1 in a PR. That's of course only because there wasn't one in the off-season.


Because it'd be nice to read one where foreigner is the best sc2 player in the world. That's all.



Serral got the best player of the year award for 2018. That;s exactly what you ask for.

Edit> Sorry not sorry. I don't know how to tell you, foreign/serral fanboys, that Serral technically won the last 2018 power rank. But hey, let's just ignore it and argue about March, where he lost to Inno and soO but he deserves the #1 because emotions.
I imagine France should be able to take this unless Lilbow is busy practicing for Starcraft III. | KadaverBB is my fairy ban mother.
fronkschnonk
Profile Joined November 2011
Germany622 Posts
March 10 2019 13:04 GMT
#162
On March 10 2019 19:32 Geo.Rion wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 10 2019 18:40 fronkschnonk wrote:
On March 10 2019 17:44 Geo.Rion wrote:
On March 10 2019 05:50 fronkschnonk wrote:
On March 10 2019 04:07 terribleplayer1 wrote:
No fronk, you're wrong, he did face better koreans, and he did have a considerably better winrate, the only thing you're right that I never disagreed is that Maru played more koreans.


https://i.gyazo.com/fbcc934fbd03ffd4bce82601a098de06.png

Ok, let me specify: Marus winrate vs top Koreans in offline matches wasn't considerably worse. Nor did Serral face better Koreans more often than Maru.

Ok, to be transparent, here are my criteria:

1) Only offline matches which are part of real competition are taken into account.
Online matches always have the flaw of not being pretigeous (and therefore not being taken as serious) and players hiding their best strats.
Showmatches also aren't taken as serious quite often. This is why I'll exclude Serral's Bo1-win vs Maru in the GSL vs The World team showmatch.
Also offline qualifiers which aren't streamed are to be excluded. They often take place in unfavorable times, vs unknown opponents and the only goal is to qualify, not to show your best starcraft.

2) To compare Serral's and Maru's dominance in 2018, we'll first have to determine their respective period of dominance:
Maru:
His dominance began with the Ro8 of GSL Season 1 (march 10th).
It ended with his 3rd consecutive GSL championship win vs TY (september 15th)
(his streak could also include his win vs Rogue at GSL Supertournament 2, but sinc he lost vs sOs in the same tournament two days later, it's fair to exclude this win).
This period of domincance lasted over 6 months in which Maru only lost 2 offline matches.

Serral:
His dominance began with the Ro8 of GSL vs The World (August 4th).
It ended with his victory at Homestory Cup vs Innovation (November 25th).
(One could argue, if it is fair that Serrals period of dominance was artificially ended by the end of competition in the end of 2018. But we only can deal with data we have, not with data that might have been if things had been different. Serral's performance at IEM showed that he - while still being a top player - is not as dominant anymore).
This period of dominance lasted over 4 months in which Serral incredibly lost no offline match at all.

3) Now we have to count the top players they won against, in order to value their win streaks:
Maru:
GSL S1 Ro8: sOs, Dark, Stats -> 3 top players
WESG: Nerchio, Scarlett, Showtime, Reynor, Serral, Dark -> 2 (?) top players
GSL Super Tournament 1: soO -> 1 top player
GSL S2: Zanster, Dear, Patience, Solar, Rogue, Classic, Zest -> 5 top players
GSL vs The World: soO, Showtime -> 1 top player
GSL S3: Forte, Leenock, Neeb, Reynor, Gumiho, Zest, TY -> 4 top players
----> This equals 15 top players

Serral:
GSL Super Tournament 1: Innovation, Dark, Stats -> 3 top players
Blizzcon: sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, Stats -> 5 top players
Homestory Cup XVIII: Bly, soO, Trap, Bunny, Hellraiser, souL, Taeja, uThermal, Bunny, Innovation -> 2 top players
----> This equals 10 top players

One probably could argue about, which opponents should be counted as "top players", but this goes for both Maru and Serral. So if you include top WCS players and some more Koreans, then the winrates would rise for both.

So I conclude again:
In 2018 Maru was dominant for a longer period of time in which he faced tougher competition more often than Serral did in his shorter period of dominance.

You conveniently left out how Serral won over Rogue, Impact, Neeb, Zest and Trap before he lost vs Classic at IEM, yet you were quick to note how Maru gloriously defeated the likes of Solar and soO (who accomplished nothing in 2018)

And sure if WCS doesnt count then one can argue all sorts of thing. But it does count. The very least you would need to take into considerations his win against foreigners who made it into GSL ro16 or above. So if you add the IEM wins and the WCS wins over GSL participants, Serral passed Maru by your own absurd and subjective criteria.
Serral went undefeated for a very long time, while Maru's 3 GSL and one LAN win came with interruptions when he was knocked out in the big LAN's including Blizzcon.

If you just cherry-pick the data, then sure you can make all kind of stats, and prove all kinds of points. Here let me show you:
Serral won 7 out of the 8 big tournaments he entered in 2018, that's 87,5%, and it does include the World champion-ship
Maru won 4 of the 7 big tournaments he entered, that's 57% and does not include the World champion-ship

Serral's performance is 20+% better

OR
Serral won 6 big tournaments in a row. Maru won 2 in a row. Serral's performance is 200% better

The way I see it, Serral haters have 2 main arguments:
1. he didnt participate in normal GSL seasons, cuz surely he couldnt have won there. Which I find to be a lame ass argument, cuz it cannot be proved/ disproved, and other, less accomplished foreigners could do well in GSL.
2. He didnt win at IEM at the start of the year. Which i again find a lame ass argument, since nobody was calling him best player of the world in february, and it was a good showing even there, and straight up wins for the rest of the year.

Wow - chill man. I'm not hating anyone. Serral is great and seems to be a cool guy and is a blessing for SC2.

I didn't "left out" anything. I clearly defined periods of times in which Serral and Maru were undisputedly dominant. At WESG and IEM Serral performed well but still didn't reach that state of dominance he achieved later. And if I were to include wins vs Impact and Trap, I easily could inflate Maru's winrate, too. I counted soO for Serral, too. And saying that soO did accomplish nothing in 2018 while he made it to the finals of HSC XVII and had a Ro8 appearance in GSL, is just insane. Same goes for Solar, who made it to 4th place at GSL Super Tournament 2 and at HSC XVII and was extremely close to making it to Blizzcon. What did Trap achieve in comparison? And while I love Impact he really doesn't have an impact on this discussion at all.

Serral won 7 out of 9 (not 8) tournaments he entered in 2018. 4 of those tournaments weren't vs the toughest competition. 5 of those tournaments happened before he proved that he can dominate vs the toughest competition. He won 3 out of 5 tournaments vs the toughest competition.
Maru won 4 out of 8 tournamens he entered in 2018. All of those were vs the toughest competition.

edit: I think it is the best to compare Maru's and Serrals periods of dominance in which they won (almost for Maru) everything. The rest of their year gives us the same impression: they were really strong players.

As i said, you can crunch the data any way you want and end up concluding the presupposition you started out with.

You make some premises, that are not fact based or objective, than you use them to prove your point. You use one of your opinions to prove that your other opinion is factually correct.

You decided which periods are relevant for the 2 players, then decided which opponents matter. That s all fine and good, and if that's how you see it and how you feel about it, that s your business, but please dispense with the idea that it's anything more than highly subjective, personal opinion.

One last note, not sure which TLer started this "weekend tournament" misnomer, but it's really annoying how it stuck.

WCS isnt a weekend tournament, nor is IEM, WESG and definitely not Blizzcon. The only "weekend" tournament there were are the GSL super-tournaments which indeed are a straight up single elim-bracket, games being played out one after another, it's over in less than 2 days.
The rest are tournaments that have main event that last a week, with different qualifier leading up to it. Most of the times the pros know their groups or at least part of their groups in advance, way before the event starts, they can prepare specific builds for specific players and maps, if they feel like it.
Than at the main event they usually have a day or two, but the very least a few hours to prepare for the new opponents, to be sure it's not enough to come up with a new build and test it in optimal condition 50-100 times, but it's not like you're going in blind and being hit by opponents one after another.

The idea that a week long tournament (not taking into consideration qualifiers) which features a mix of opponents that you're aware in advance, and others that you arent, is somehow clearly inferior format to the GSL normal seasons, cuz there you have a week to prepare for the match, and the winner can handpick his group for next season... it s just silly and dishonest.

You're making quite some assumptions about my approach, which are speculation or plainly wrong.

So I make premises. Of course I do. If I want to say anything I have to set some premises beforehand in order to be able to know wether something is the case or not. You can't just say "It's cold outside" without having a definition of what is "outside" and at what degree and under what circumstances something is to be called "cold".

The question is: do my premises make sense? I think so, but that is open to discussion. I never said that what you're implying: that my premises are objective. They're not, of course, but perhaps they can be the fundament of a consense in this discussion. In order to get to a consense, you'd have to weigh my premises and perhaps adjust them but all you're saying is, that my premises aren't objective. This isn't exactly helpful and it isn't a viable objection either, because premises in such a field are bound to be subjective to some degree.
So, you're invited to discuss my premises, but please, show me some arguments at least.

Regarding the "weekender" topic.
You're right. "weekender" isn't exact and a kind of lazy term that derives from old Dreamhack times. What it is meant to say: A tournament that takes place in a short amount of time (mostly a week or shorter) where there isn't much or no time at all for specific preparation for a specific opponent.
Contrary a league format tournament is a tournament lasting for multiple weeks where players most of the time have a week or more to prepare for very few or only one opponent(s).

I explicitly said that the so called "weekender" format (if you have a better name, I'll gladly adopt it) is not anyhow inferior to a league format (thus I still think that Taeja is one of the GOATs of SC2).
I just said that both formats favor different sets of skill and Maru got tested in both, but Serral only got tested in one. At the same time I said that I think, that this is a minor factor.
Furthermore, I consider that some kind of Code A must be reestablished.
Xain0n
Profile Joined November 2018
Italy3963 Posts
March 10 2019 13:11 GMT
#163
On March 10 2019 21:25 deacon.frost wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 10 2019 02:05 NotSoHappy wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:32 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:10 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 21:43 MarianoSC2 wrote:
My only issue with this list is that Gumi is in it. Should have been Rogue. And TY is too low.
Otherwise based on the circumstances and the number of relevant events so far its a good ranking don't understand so many people bashing it.
I guess Serral fan boys want to keep they reputation of the most deluded group of people ever. GJ in that regard


Have you looked at the results of that astonishing pool, "Who's most deluded: Serral fanboys or Korean Elitists?" ?

You may not support the opinion that Serral should be at #1 this power ranking but you should at least understand there is a strong case for it, casually insisting on this "delusion" regarding the most successful player in 2018(according to TL, you know) and the best foreigner in history is frankly out of place.

There is a strong case for it but saying "Serral must be first and every other opinion is just dishonest and disrespecting him" is just bullshit.
Personally Serral still seems like the best player to me but given his lack of recent results (Blizzcon was 3 months ago) I think it's completely reasonable to put the player that has won the only big tournament this year at the top.
Not sure what's there to get upset about...


I am personally not upset as you might notice, I think Serral should figure as first in this list but soO is understandable.
People overreacting are probably frustrated by the fact Serral never figured as #1 in a power ranking despite totally deserving it(it would have been unanimous for HSC, but TL's writers decided to make a humurous one instead).
You are basically right here.


Yeah TL writers totally made a humorous PR for HSC to avoid putting Serral in first.
I don't understand what's the big deal about him never being #1 in a PR. That's of course only because there wasn't one in the off-season.


Because it'd be nice to read one where foreigner is the best sc2 player in the world. That's all.



Serral got the best player of the year award for 2018. That;s exactly what you ask for.

Edit> Sorry not sorry. I don't know how to tell you, foreign/serral fanboys, that Serral technically won the last 2018 power rank. But hey, let's just ignore it and argue about March, where he lost to Inno and soO but he deserves the #1 because emotions.


The player of the year award is not a power rank(even if it is much better).

The loss to Inno had no meaning other than breaking Serral's streak and soO went to become the eventual champion; you are making it look like Serral clearly isn't #1 anymore whereas the case for him to still be the best player in the world is very strong, especially because no one is apparently dominant in 2019.

If power ranks would be meant to take into consideration 2019 results only soO could be seen as #1; however, as Bisudagger brilliantly pointed out, would be Gumiho, who had the same Code S path as soO(and a similar lack of results in 2018) before IEM, ranked #1 in list if he won the event?

Not to mention soO went out of code S shortly after this power ranking whose timing was most likely not appropriate given the amount of important tournaments coming this March: publishing it either before IEM or after Code S's second groupstage would have been a better decision.
deacon.frost
Profile Joined February 2013
Czech Republic12129 Posts
March 10 2019 13:25 GMT
#164
On March 10 2019 22:11 Xain0n wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 10 2019 21:25 deacon.frost wrote:
On March 10 2019 02:05 NotSoHappy wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:32 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:10 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 21:43 MarianoSC2 wrote:
My only issue with this list is that Gumi is in it. Should have been Rogue. And TY is too low.
Otherwise based on the circumstances and the number of relevant events so far its a good ranking don't understand so many people bashing it.
I guess Serral fan boys want to keep they reputation of the most deluded group of people ever. GJ in that regard


Have you looked at the results of that astonishing pool, "Who's most deluded: Serral fanboys or Korean Elitists?" ?

You may not support the opinion that Serral should be at #1 this power ranking but you should at least understand there is a strong case for it, casually insisting on this "delusion" regarding the most successful player in 2018(according to TL, you know) and the best foreigner in history is frankly out of place.

There is a strong case for it but saying "Serral must be first and every other opinion is just dishonest and disrespecting him" is just bullshit.
Personally Serral still seems like the best player to me but given his lack of recent results (Blizzcon was 3 months ago) I think it's completely reasonable to put the player that has won the only big tournament this year at the top.
Not sure what's there to get upset about...


I am personally not upset as you might notice, I think Serral should figure as first in this list but soO is understandable.
People overreacting are probably frustrated by the fact Serral never figured as #1 in a power ranking despite totally deserving it(it would have been unanimous for HSC, but TL's writers decided to make a humurous one instead).
You are basically right here.


Yeah TL writers totally made a humorous PR for HSC to avoid putting Serral in first.
I don't understand what's the big deal about him never being #1 in a PR. That's of course only because there wasn't one in the off-season.


Because it'd be nice to read one where foreigner is the best sc2 player in the world. That's all.



Serral got the best player of the year award for 2018. That;s exactly what you ask for.

Edit> Sorry not sorry. I don't know how to tell you, foreign/serral fanboys, that Serral technically won the last 2018 power rank. But hey, let's just ignore it and argue about March, where he lost to Inno and soO but he deserves the #1 because emotions.


The player of the year award is not a power rank(even if it is much better).

The loss to Inno had no meaning other than breaking Serral's streak and soO went to become the eventual champion; you are making it look like Serral clearly isn't #1 anymore whereas the case for him to still be the best player in the world is very strong, especially because no one is apparently dominant in 2019.

If power ranks would be meant to take into consideration 2019 results only soO could be seen as #1; however, as Bisudagger brilliantly pointed out, would be Gumiho, who had the same Code S path as soO(and a similar lack of results in 2018) before IEM, ranked #1 in list if he won the event?

Not to mention soO went out of code S shortly after this power ranking whose timing was most likely not appropriate given the amount of important tournaments coming this March: publishing it either before IEM or after Code S's second groupstage would have been a better decision.

At the time of writing the article he wasn't the best player of the moment. That was soO. Power ranks are about the current form mostly and that wasn't Serral, it was the champion who defeated Serral
I imagine France should be able to take this unless Lilbow is busy practicing for Starcraft III. | KadaverBB is my fairy ban mother.
Geo.Rion
Profile Blog Joined October 2008
7377 Posts
March 10 2019 13:34 GMT
#165
On March 10 2019 22:04 fronkschnonk wrote:

I explicitly said that the so called "weekender" format (if you have a better name, I'll gladly adopt it) is not anyhow inferior to a league format (thus I still think that Taeja is one of the GOATs of SC2).
I just said that both formats favor different sets of skill and Maru got tested in both, but Serral only got tested in one. At the same time I said that I think, that this is a minor factor.

I should specify that although i was replying to you, with that part of the comment I wasnt saying you're doing that, it was more of a general observation I had in mind, but never gotten around to post is.

It's a somewhat popular opinion on this site that GSL code S is clearly superior format for whatever reason, or rather it became a popular opinion after a foreigner started to win the LANs
"Protoss is a joke" Liquid`Jinro Okt.1. 2011
Elentos
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
55511 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-03-10 13:47:26
March 10 2019 13:46 GMT
#166
On March 10 2019 22:11 Xain0n wrote:
If power ranks would be meant to take into consideration 2019 results only soO could be seen as #1; however, as Bisudagger brilliantly pointed out, would be Gumiho, who had the same Code S path as soO(and a similar lack of results in 2018) before IEM, ranked #1 in list if he won the event?

This is just conjecture, but considering that GuMiho already made it to the top 10 without doing anything to validate such a position in the ranking, he probably would have been #1 if he won Katowice.
Every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes.
deacon.frost
Profile Joined February 2013
Czech Republic12129 Posts
March 10 2019 13:51 GMT
#167
On March 10 2019 22:11 Xain0n wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 10 2019 21:25 deacon.frost wrote:
On March 10 2019 02:05 NotSoHappy wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:32 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:10 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 21:43 MarianoSC2 wrote:
My only issue with this list is that Gumi is in it. Should have been Rogue. And TY is too low.
Otherwise based on the circumstances and the number of relevant events so far its a good ranking don't understand so many people bashing it.
I guess Serral fan boys want to keep they reputation of the most deluded group of people ever. GJ in that regard


Have you looked at the results of that astonishing pool, "Who's most deluded: Serral fanboys or Korean Elitists?" ?

You may not support the opinion that Serral should be at #1 this power ranking but you should at least understand there is a strong case for it, casually insisting on this "delusion" regarding the most successful player in 2018(according to TL, you know) and the best foreigner in history is frankly out of place.

There is a strong case for it but saying "Serral must be first and every other opinion is just dishonest and disrespecting him" is just bullshit.
Personally Serral still seems like the best player to me but given his lack of recent results (Blizzcon was 3 months ago) I think it's completely reasonable to put the player that has won the only big tournament this year at the top.
Not sure what's there to get upset about...


I am personally not upset as you might notice, I think Serral should figure as first in this list but soO is understandable.
People overreacting are probably frustrated by the fact Serral never figured as #1 in a power ranking despite totally deserving it(it would have been unanimous for HSC, but TL's writers decided to make a humurous one instead).
You are basically right here.


Yeah TL writers totally made a humorous PR for HSC to avoid putting Serral in first.
I don't understand what's the big deal about him never being #1 in a PR. That's of course only because there wasn't one in the off-season.


Because it'd be nice to read one where foreigner is the best sc2 player in the world. That's all.



Serral got the best player of the year award for 2018. That;s exactly what you ask for.

Edit> Sorry not sorry. I don't know how to tell you, foreign/serral fanboys, that Serral technically won the last 2018 power rank. But hey, let's just ignore it and argue about March, where he lost to Inno and soO but he deserves the #1 because emotions.


The player of the year award is not a power rank(even if it is much better).

If power ranks would be meant to take into consideration 2019 results only soO could be seen as #1; however, as Bisudagger brilliantly pointed out, would be Gumiho, who had the same Code S path as soO(and a similar lack of results in 2018) before IEM, ranked #1 in list if he won the event?


If GumiHo defeated Serral on the road to the title I believe he would have been #1.
I imagine France should be able to take this unless Lilbow is busy practicing for Starcraft III. | KadaverBB is my fairy ban mother.
Xain0n
Profile Joined November 2018
Italy3963 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-03-10 14:41:58
March 10 2019 14:39 GMT
#168
On March 10 2019 22:25 deacon.frost wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 10 2019 22:11 Xain0n wrote:
On March 10 2019 21:25 deacon.frost wrote:
On March 10 2019 02:05 NotSoHappy wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:32 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:10 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 21:43 MarianoSC2 wrote:
My only issue with this list is that Gumi is in it. Should have been Rogue. And TY is too low.
Otherwise based on the circumstances and the number of relevant events so far its a good ranking don't understand so many people bashing it.
I guess Serral fan boys want to keep they reputation of the most deluded group of people ever. GJ in that regard


Have you looked at the results of that astonishing pool, "Who's most deluded: Serral fanboys or Korean Elitists?" ?

You may not support the opinion that Serral should be at #1 this power ranking but you should at least understand there is a strong case for it, casually insisting on this "delusion" regarding the most successful player in 2018(according to TL, you know) and the best foreigner in history is frankly out of place.

There is a strong case for it but saying "Serral must be first and every other opinion is just dishonest and disrespecting him" is just bullshit.
Personally Serral still seems like the best player to me but given his lack of recent results (Blizzcon was 3 months ago) I think it's completely reasonable to put the player that has won the only big tournament this year at the top.
Not sure what's there to get upset about...


I am personally not upset as you might notice, I think Serral should figure as first in this list but soO is understandable.
People overreacting are probably frustrated by the fact Serral never figured as #1 in a power ranking despite totally deserving it(it would have been unanimous for HSC, but TL's writers decided to make a humurous one instead).
You are basically right here.


Yeah TL writers totally made a humorous PR for HSC to avoid putting Serral in first.
I don't understand what's the big deal about him never being #1 in a PR. That's of course only because there wasn't one in the off-season.


Because it'd be nice to read one where foreigner is the best sc2 player in the world. That's all.



Serral got the best player of the year award for 2018. That;s exactly what you ask for.

Edit> Sorry not sorry. I don't know how to tell you, foreign/serral fanboys, that Serral technically won the last 2018 power rank. But hey, let's just ignore it and argue about March, where he lost to Inno and soO but he deserves the #1 because emotions.


The player of the year award is not a power rank(even if it is much better).

The loss to Inno had no meaning other than breaking Serral's streak and soO went to become the eventual champion; you are making it look like Serral clearly isn't #1 anymore whereas the case for him to still be the best player in the world is very strong, especially because no one is apparently dominant in 2019.

If power ranks would be meant to take into consideration 2019 results only soO could be seen as #1; however, as Bisudagger brilliantly pointed out, would be Gumiho, who had the same Code S path as soO(and a similar lack of results in 2018) before IEM, ranked #1 in list if he won the event?

Not to mention soO went out of code S shortly after this power ranking whose timing was most likely not appropriate given the amount of important tournaments coming this March: publishing it either before IEM or after Code S's second groupstage would have been a better decision.

At the time of writing the article he wasn't the best player of the moment. That was soO. Power ranks are about the current form mostly and that wasn't Serral, it was the champion who defeated Serral


"Current" form as you are describing it changes daily, you can only say for sure soO was the best player during IEM's playoffs.
This is very narrow scope, in stark contrast to the "updated criteria to focus more on the big picture than the calendar month" for this and the next power rankings in 2019.
fronkschnonk
Profile Joined November 2011
Germany622 Posts
March 10 2019 15:42 GMT
#169
On March 10 2019 23:39 Xain0n wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 10 2019 22:25 deacon.frost wrote:
On March 10 2019 22:11 Xain0n wrote:
On March 10 2019 21:25 deacon.frost wrote:
On March 10 2019 02:05 NotSoHappy wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:32 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:10 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 21:43 MarianoSC2 wrote:
My only issue with this list is that Gumi is in it. Should have been Rogue. And TY is too low.
Otherwise based on the circumstances and the number of relevant events so far its a good ranking don't understand so many people bashing it.
I guess Serral fan boys want to keep they reputation of the most deluded group of people ever. GJ in that regard


Have you looked at the results of that astonishing pool, "Who's most deluded: Serral fanboys or Korean Elitists?" ?

You may not support the opinion that Serral should be at #1 this power ranking but you should at least understand there is a strong case for it, casually insisting on this "delusion" regarding the most successful player in 2018(according to TL, you know) and the best foreigner in history is frankly out of place.

There is a strong case for it but saying "Serral must be first and every other opinion is just dishonest and disrespecting him" is just bullshit.
Personally Serral still seems like the best player to me but given his lack of recent results (Blizzcon was 3 months ago) I think it's completely reasonable to put the player that has won the only big tournament this year at the top.
Not sure what's there to get upset about...


I am personally not upset as you might notice, I think Serral should figure as first in this list but soO is understandable.
People overreacting are probably frustrated by the fact Serral never figured as #1 in a power ranking despite totally deserving it(it would have been unanimous for HSC, but TL's writers decided to make a humurous one instead).
You are basically right here.


Yeah TL writers totally made a humorous PR for HSC to avoid putting Serral in first.
I don't understand what's the big deal about him never being #1 in a PR. That's of course only because there wasn't one in the off-season.


Because it'd be nice to read one where foreigner is the best sc2 player in the world. That's all.



Serral got the best player of the year award for 2018. That;s exactly what you ask for.

Edit> Sorry not sorry. I don't know how to tell you, foreign/serral fanboys, that Serral technically won the last 2018 power rank. But hey, let's just ignore it and argue about March, where he lost to Inno and soO but he deserves the #1 because emotions.


The player of the year award is not a power rank(even if it is much better).

The loss to Inno had no meaning other than breaking Serral's streak and soO went to become the eventual champion; you are making it look like Serral clearly isn't #1 anymore whereas the case for him to still be the best player in the world is very strong, especially because no one is apparently dominant in 2019.

If power ranks would be meant to take into consideration 2019 results only soO could be seen as #1; however, as Bisudagger brilliantly pointed out, would be Gumiho, who had the same Code S path as soO(and a similar lack of results in 2018) before IEM, ranked #1 in list if he won the event?

Not to mention soO went out of code S shortly after this power ranking whose timing was most likely not appropriate given the amount of important tournaments coming this March: publishing it either before IEM or after Code S's second groupstage would have been a better decision.

At the time of writing the article he wasn't the best player of the moment. That was soO. Power ranks are about the current form mostly and that wasn't Serral, it was the champion who defeated Serral


"Current" form as you are describing it changes daily, you can only say for sure soO was the best player during IEM's playoffs.
This is very narrow scope, in stark contrast to the "updated criteria to focus more on the big picture than the calendar month" for this and the next power rankings in 2019.

When you're saying this it sounds like the "big picture"/consistency has to outdo the most recent results according to the updated criteria. But that's not the case. The new criteria means that consistency is weighed more heavily than before. They probably did that because of the long off-season. But they explicitly said that most recent results are the most important factors. Still, because of the more heavily weighed consistency, Maru was ranked 5th and Serral 2nd allthough their placement at IEM alone wouldn't implicate that.
Furthermore, I consider that some kind of Code A must be reestablished.
Xain0n
Profile Joined November 2018
Italy3963 Posts
March 10 2019 15:52 GMT
#170
On March 11 2019 00:42 fronkschnonk wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 10 2019 23:39 Xain0n wrote:
On March 10 2019 22:25 deacon.frost wrote:
On March 10 2019 22:11 Xain0n wrote:
On March 10 2019 21:25 deacon.frost wrote:
On March 10 2019 02:05 NotSoHappy wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:32 Xain0n wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 09 2019 22:10 Xain0n wrote:
[quote]

Have you looked at the results of that astonishing pool, "Who's most deluded: Serral fanboys or Korean Elitists?" ?

You may not support the opinion that Serral should be at #1 this power ranking but you should at least understand there is a strong case for it, casually insisting on this "delusion" regarding the most successful player in 2018(according to TL, you know) and the best foreigner in history is frankly out of place.

There is a strong case for it but saying "Serral must be first and every other opinion is just dishonest and disrespecting him" is just bullshit.
Personally Serral still seems like the best player to me but given his lack of recent results (Blizzcon was 3 months ago) I think it's completely reasonable to put the player that has won the only big tournament this year at the top.
Not sure what's there to get upset about...


I am personally not upset as you might notice, I think Serral should figure as first in this list but soO is understandable.
People overreacting are probably frustrated by the fact Serral never figured as #1 in a power ranking despite totally deserving it(it would have been unanimous for HSC, but TL's writers decided to make a humurous one instead).
You are basically right here.


Yeah TL writers totally made a humorous PR for HSC to avoid putting Serral in first.
I don't understand what's the big deal about him never being #1 in a PR. That's of course only because there wasn't one in the off-season.


Because it'd be nice to read one where foreigner is the best sc2 player in the world. That's all.



Serral got the best player of the year award for 2018. That;s exactly what you ask for.

Edit> Sorry not sorry. I don't know how to tell you, foreign/serral fanboys, that Serral technically won the last 2018 power rank. But hey, let's just ignore it and argue about March, where he lost to Inno and soO but he deserves the #1 because emotions.


The player of the year award is not a power rank(even if it is much better).

The loss to Inno had no meaning other than breaking Serral's streak and soO went to become the eventual champion; you are making it look like Serral clearly isn't #1 anymore whereas the case for him to still be the best player in the world is very strong, especially because no one is apparently dominant in 2019.

If power ranks would be meant to take into consideration 2019 results only soO could be seen as #1; however, as Bisudagger brilliantly pointed out, would be Gumiho, who had the same Code S path as soO(and a similar lack of results in 2018) before IEM, ranked #1 in list if he won the event?

Not to mention soO went out of code S shortly after this power ranking whose timing was most likely not appropriate given the amount of important tournaments coming this March: publishing it either before IEM or after Code S's second groupstage would have been a better decision.

At the time of writing the article he wasn't the best player of the moment. That was soO. Power ranks are about the current form mostly and that wasn't Serral, it was the champion who defeated Serral


"Current" form as you are describing it changes daily, you can only say for sure soO was the best player during IEM's playoffs.
This is very narrow scope, in stark contrast to the "updated criteria to focus more on the big picture than the calendar month" for this and the next power rankings in 2019.

When you're saying this it sounds like the "big picture"/consistency has to outdo the most recent results according to the updated criteria. But that's not the case. The new criteria means that consistency is weighed more heavily than before. They probably did that because of the long off-season. But they explicitly said that most recent results are the most important factors. Still, because of the more heavily weighed consistency, Maru was ranked 5th and Serral 2nd allthough their placement at IEM alone wouldn't implicate that.


A power ranking would be senseless if it mirrored the results of a single tournament, don't you think?

I am saying here "big picture" results here are not taken into consideration more than it happened in 2018's lists, I see no sensible changes despite TL Writers saying previous feats and consistency would have a bigger impact.

I already stated this is not a bad list in my opinion, but that it is far from a flawless one.
fronkschnonk
Profile Joined November 2011
Germany622 Posts
March 10 2019 16:41 GMT
#171
There is a big difference to 2018's lists: none of these lists had to deal with such a big timeframe without tournaments to refer to. To justify that the results of more than 3 months ago are still that impactful they had to give the consistency-factor more relevance.
You're applying for giving consistency even more credit. That's ok. But I think it's unfair to accuse the writers of not living up to their criteria.

Interestingly the consistency issue could be a main point in the serral/maru-dicussion, too. I'd rather not take Serral's two WCS wins before GSL vs The World in account for his period of dominance, beause those victories are no proof of him being able to dominate on highest level. You'd rather extend Serral's period of dominance to those victories because you think that the consistency shown by Serral makes it probable, that he already was as good when he won WCS Valencia and WCS Austin.
Is that correct or am I misinterpretating?
Furthermore, I consider that some kind of Code A must be reestablished.
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany15929 Posts
March 10 2019 17:25 GMT
#172
To people laughing about soO losing in GSL after getting #1 in the PR - it's really convenient when the player you want to see at #1 doesn't compete in GSL and thus doesn't have an opportunity to fail isn't it?
soO dropping out definitely shouldn't count in favor of Serral when he doesn't even compete in the GSL.

This is again like arguing he was the best player in 2018 because he lost the least matches...
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
swarminfestor
Profile Joined September 2017
Malaysia2449 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-03-10 17:35:32
March 10 2019 17:29 GMT
#173
I love the interview on (Z)soO done by hajisun & (P)ToD. He jokingly said that Serral was the Deepmind, so if he beat Serral then he technically beat Deepmind.

Then, the story about (T)Bunny as the next player should bear the curse of Kong. Bunny was dreaming of having final matchup with Soo, so that he could win easily. This was made before Soo hold the IEM trophy.
He also trash talked Stats some kind like underperformed soccer player, and (Z)Rogue as someone couldn't be able to hold the IEM trophy like he did.

Other thing was his relationship with Innovation seemed like special thing since he praised him a lot during the interview. I guess it was a platonic bromance-kind relationship, maybe.
Rogue & Maru fan boy. ^^
Fango
Profile Joined July 2016
United Kingdom8987 Posts
March 10 2019 17:49 GMT
#174
On March 11 2019 02:25 Charoisaur wrote:
This is again like arguing he was the best player in 2018 because he lost the least matches...

People actually say this though that's the thing
Zest, sOs, PartinG, Dark, and Maru are the real champs. ROOT_herO is overrated. Snute, Serral, and Scarlett are the foreigner GOATs
Xain0n
Profile Joined November 2018
Italy3963 Posts
March 10 2019 18:19 GMT
#175
On March 11 2019 01:41 fronkschnonk wrote:
There is a big difference to 2018's lists: none of these lists had to deal with such a big timeframe without tournaments to refer to. To justify that the results of more than 3 months ago are still that impactful they had to give the consistency-factor more relevance.
You're applying for giving consistency even more credit. That's ok. But I think it's unfair to accuse the writers of not living up to their criteria.

Interestingly the consistency issue could be a main point in the serral/maru-dicussion, too. I'd rather not take Serral's two WCS wins before GSL vs The World in account for his period of dominance, beause those victories are no proof of him being able to dominate on highest level. You'd rather extend Serral's period of dominance to those victories because you think that the consistency shown by Serral makes it probable, that he already was as good when he won WCS Valencia and WCS Austin.
Is that correct or am I misinterpretating?


Had they not written anything about updating their criteria, it would have been fine but since they did I feel they did not entirely achieved this new goal by giving a IEM too much weight.

You surely aren't misinterpretating, I suspect Serral was already good when he won those WCS titles but the truth is that we will never know; personally, I wouldn't extend Serral's global dominance to these titles(I'd include December, tho) but I would end Maru's after GSL vs the World in retrospective.

The fact that Serral doesn't live in Korea and is not korean means that he is not implied to play in Code S; he plays in WCS as you would expect a finnish player to do.
Not playing in Code S doesn't magically make you inferior to every GSL player like many seem to think, it is NOT a prerequisite for a certain threshold of skill or for being the best player in the world.
Sure, Code S is the hardest and most prestigious regional tournament in sc2; fortunately there are international tournaments where the players from every region can face each other.

Serral was the best player in 2018 because he added the best overall results in international tournaments including winning the biggest and historically more relevant one(BlizzCon) to the utter domination of his own region.
deacon.frost
Profile Joined February 2013
Czech Republic12129 Posts
March 10 2019 19:49 GMT
#176
On March 11 2019 03:19 Xain0n wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 11 2019 01:41 fronkschnonk wrote:
There is a big difference to 2018's lists: none of these lists had to deal with such a big timeframe without tournaments to refer to. To justify that the results of more than 3 months ago are still that impactful they had to give the consistency-factor more relevance.
You're applying for giving consistency even more credit. That's ok. But I think it's unfair to accuse the writers of not living up to their criteria.

Interestingly the consistency issue could be a main point in the serral/maru-dicussion, too. I'd rather not take Serral's two WCS wins before GSL vs The World in account for his period of dominance, beause those victories are no proof of him being able to dominate on highest level. You'd rather extend Serral's period of dominance to those victories because you think that the consistency shown by Serral makes it probable, that he already was as good when he won WCS Valencia and WCS Austin.
Is that correct or am I misinterpretating?


Had they not written anything about updating their criteria, it would have been fine but since they did I feel they did not entirely achieved this new goal by giving a IEM too much weight.

You surely aren't misinterpretating, I suspect Serral was already good when he won those WCS titles but the truth is that we will never know; personally, I wouldn't extend Serral's global dominance to these titles(I'd include December, tho) but I would end Maru's after GSL vs the World in retrospective.

The fact that Serral doesn't live in Korea and is not korean means that he is not implied to play in Code S; he plays in WCS as you would expect a finnish player to do.
Not playing in Code S doesn't magically make you inferior to every GSL player like many seem to think, it is NOT a prerequisite for a certain threshold of skill or for being the best player in the world.
Sure, Code S is the hardest and most prestigious regional tournament in sc2; fortunately there are international tournaments where the players from every region can face each other.

Serral was the best player in 2018 because he added the best overall results in international tournaments including winning the biggest and historically more relevant one(BlizzCon) to the utter domination of his own region.

When you say "dont use GSL against Serral" then say - don't use GSL against any other top Korean. Because, and let's face it, the more you play other top Koreans, the bigger chance to lose. It's really unfair to use GSL against soO while Serral haven't done anything particulary amazing this year. soO had a group of death, he lost, boohoo. Serral didn't even qualify.

If you wanna use Code S against soO we will use Code S against Serral, that's the game.
I imagine France should be able to take this unless Lilbow is busy practicing for Starcraft III. | KadaverBB is my fairy ban mother.
Xain0n
Profile Joined November 2018
Italy3963 Posts
March 10 2019 20:15 GMT
#177
On March 11 2019 04:49 deacon.frost wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 11 2019 03:19 Xain0n wrote:
On March 11 2019 01:41 fronkschnonk wrote:
There is a big difference to 2018's lists: none of these lists had to deal with such a big timeframe without tournaments to refer to. To justify that the results of more than 3 months ago are still that impactful they had to give the consistency-factor more relevance.
You're applying for giving consistency even more credit. That's ok. But I think it's unfair to accuse the writers of not living up to their criteria.

Interestingly the consistency issue could be a main point in the serral/maru-dicussion, too. I'd rather not take Serral's two WCS wins before GSL vs The World in account for his period of dominance, beause those victories are no proof of him being able to dominate on highest level. You'd rather extend Serral's period of dominance to those victories because you think that the consistency shown by Serral makes it probable, that he already was as good when he won WCS Valencia and WCS Austin.
Is that correct or am I misinterpretating?


Had they not written anything about updating their criteria, it would have been fine but since they did I feel they did not entirely achieved this new goal by giving a IEM too much weight.

You surely aren't misinterpretating, I suspect Serral was already good when he won those WCS titles but the truth is that we will never know; personally, I wouldn't extend Serral's global dominance to these titles(I'd include December, tho) but I would end Maru's after GSL vs the World in retrospective.

The fact that Serral doesn't live in Korea and is not korean means that he is not implied to play in Code S; he plays in WCS as you would expect a finnish player to do.
Not playing in Code S doesn't magically make you inferior to every GSL player like many seem to think, it is NOT a prerequisite for a certain threshold of skill or for being the best player in the world.
Sure, Code S is the hardest and most prestigious regional tournament in sc2; fortunately there are international tournaments where the players from every region can face each other.

Serral was the best player in 2018 because he added the best overall results in international tournaments including winning the biggest and historically more relevant one(BlizzCon) to the utter domination of his own region.

When you say "dont use GSL against Serral" then say - don't use GSL against any other top Korean. Because, and let's face it, the more you play other top Koreans, the bigger chance to lose. It's really unfair to use GSL against soO while Serral haven't done anything particulary amazing this year. soO had a group of death, he lost, boohoo. Serral didn't even qualify.

If you wanna use Code S against soO we will use Code S against Serral, that's the game.


No, that's nonsense; you could use code S against Serral if he was korean or playing in Korea. He plays in WCS as his nationality would suggest; the reasoning for which not playing in a tournament you are not expected to is worse than not doing well when playing it seems terribly flawed, to me.

soO's placement in this power ranking was acceptable but his loss in his ro16 group seems to strenghten the claim that considering him the best of the world at the moment was a it someway rushed decision, maybe dictated by the sensation generated by him breaking the Kong's curse.
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany15929 Posts
March 10 2019 20:20 GMT
#178
On March 11 2019 05:15 Xain0n wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 11 2019 04:49 deacon.frost wrote:
On March 11 2019 03:19 Xain0n wrote:
On March 11 2019 01:41 fronkschnonk wrote:
There is a big difference to 2018's lists: none of these lists had to deal with such a big timeframe without tournaments to refer to. To justify that the results of more than 3 months ago are still that impactful they had to give the consistency-factor more relevance.
You're applying for giving consistency even more credit. That's ok. But I think it's unfair to accuse the writers of not living up to their criteria.

Interestingly the consistency issue could be a main point in the serral/maru-dicussion, too. I'd rather not take Serral's two WCS wins before GSL vs The World in account for his period of dominance, beause those victories are no proof of him being able to dominate on highest level. You'd rather extend Serral's period of dominance to those victories because you think that the consistency shown by Serral makes it probable, that he already was as good when he won WCS Valencia and WCS Austin.
Is that correct or am I misinterpretating?


Had they not written anything about updating their criteria, it would have been fine but since they did I feel they did not entirely achieved this new goal by giving a IEM too much weight.

You surely aren't misinterpretating, I suspect Serral was already good when he won those WCS titles but the truth is that we will never know; personally, I wouldn't extend Serral's global dominance to these titles(I'd include December, tho) but I would end Maru's after GSL vs the World in retrospective.

The fact that Serral doesn't live in Korea and is not korean means that he is not implied to play in Code S; he plays in WCS as you would expect a finnish player to do.
Not playing in Code S doesn't magically make you inferior to every GSL player like many seem to think, it is NOT a prerequisite for a certain threshold of skill or for being the best player in the world.
Sure, Code S is the hardest and most prestigious regional tournament in sc2; fortunately there are international tournaments where the players from every region can face each other.

Serral was the best player in 2018 because he added the best overall results in international tournaments including winning the biggest and historically more relevant one(BlizzCon) to the utter domination of his own region.

When you say "dont use GSL against Serral" then say - don't use GSL against any other top Korean. Because, and let's face it, the more you play other top Koreans, the bigger chance to lose. It's really unfair to use GSL against soO while Serral haven't done anything particulary amazing this year. soO had a group of death, he lost, boohoo. Serral didn't even qualify.

If you wanna use Code S against soO we will use Code S against Serral, that's the game.


No, that's nonsense; you could use code S against Serral if he was korean or playing in Korea. He plays in WCS as his nationality would suggest; the reasoning for which not playing in a tournament you are not expected to is worse than not doing well when playing it seems terribly flawed, to me.

soO's placement in this power ranking was acceptable but his loss in his ro16 group seems to strenghten the claim that considering him the best of the world at the moment was a it someway rushed decision, maybe dictated by the sensation generated by him breaking the Kong's curse.

so because he doesn't compete in GSL we just act like he'd win every game if he'd play in the GSL? We have no idea how Serral would do in the GSL, maybe he'd drop out in the ro16 as well.
By saying soO doesn't deserve to be ranked before Serral because he lost in the ro16 you basically say that Serral would get to the ro8 by default if he'd play in the GSL which is nonsense.
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
fronkschnonk
Profile Joined November 2011
Germany622 Posts
March 10 2019 20:23 GMT
#179
On March 11 2019 03:19 Xain0n wrote:
but I would end Maru's [global dominance] after GSL vs the World in retrospective.

uhm... why?
He won vs a great looking soO and a Zest-smashing Showtime before losing to Stats. He then went on to win GSL by beating Gumiho, Zest and TY one month later. One slip up isn't the end of dominance. To argue for Maru not being as dominant as before anymore because of that single loss is totally contradicting your argument for consistency you're vehemently applying for Serral in this thread.

On March 11 2019 03:19 Xain0n wrote:
The fact that Serral doesn't live in Korea and is not korean means that he is not implied to play in Code S; he plays in WCS as you would expect a finnish player to do.
Not playing in Code S doesn't magically make you inferior to every GSL player like many seem to think, it is NOT a prerequisite for a certain threshold of skill or for being the best player in the world.
Sure, Code S is the hardest and most prestigious regional tournament in sc2; fortunately there are international tournaments where the players from every region can face each other.

You make it sound like "international tournaments where the players from every region can face each other" are actually harder than GSL (I'm sorry if I'm reading too much into this). That's just not the case based on individual skill of players who are competing in those tournaments. IEM is the only exception now. But GSL vs The World and Blizzcon do have the flaw of inflating the player pool of not super great players by letting qualify 8 foreigners. All international tournaments since the beginning of 2018 proved that no matter how high the amount of great foreigners - Koreans will still dominate the upper rounds of any tournament with very rare exceptions. Serral was the only exception who was able to make this feat a regular thing.
I still think that GSLs (and IEMs like we had right now) are theoretically the toughest tournaments there are, but the amount of great players at Blizzcon/GSL vs The World and the likes is still high enough that I'm valuing them as equal because in most cases the individual tournament path of any player doesn't differ very much in difficulty - especially in higher rounds.

On March 11 2019 03:19 Xain0n wrote:
Serral was the best player in 2018 because he added the best overall results in international tournaments including winning the biggest and historically more relevant one(BlizzCon) to the utter domination of his own region.

GSL still was an international event theoretically in 2018. There were foreigners competing in it - Neeb was quite impressive in doing so. So it's not that their was any restriction from competing in GSL. I don't say it's Serrals fault to not compete in GSL but you're now kind of doing what you're accusing me of: dismissing Maru's GSL victories because they weren't inernational events (which isn't the case).
Blizzcon is not the biggest event in terms of toughness, nor is winning international tournaments more valuable than winning GSLs.
Furthermore, I consider that some kind of Code A must be reestablished.
Xain0n
Profile Joined November 2018
Italy3963 Posts
March 10 2019 21:05 GMT
#180
On March 11 2019 05:20 Charoisaur wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 11 2019 05:15 Xain0n wrote:
On March 11 2019 04:49 deacon.frost wrote:
On March 11 2019 03:19 Xain0n wrote:
On March 11 2019 01:41 fronkschnonk wrote:
There is a big difference to 2018's lists: none of these lists had to deal with such a big timeframe without tournaments to refer to. To justify that the results of more than 3 months ago are still that impactful they had to give the consistency-factor more relevance.
You're applying for giving consistency even more credit. That's ok. But I think it's unfair to accuse the writers of not living up to their criteria.

Interestingly the consistency issue could be a main point in the serral/maru-dicussion, too. I'd rather not take Serral's two WCS wins before GSL vs The World in account for his period of dominance, beause those victories are no proof of him being able to dominate on highest level. You'd rather extend Serral's period of dominance to those victories because you think that the consistency shown by Serral makes it probable, that he already was as good when he won WCS Valencia and WCS Austin.
Is that correct or am I misinterpretating?


Had they not written anything about updating their criteria, it would have been fine but since they did I feel they did not entirely achieved this new goal by giving a IEM too much weight.

You surely aren't misinterpretating, I suspect Serral was already good when he won those WCS titles but the truth is that we will never know; personally, I wouldn't extend Serral's global dominance to these titles(I'd include December, tho) but I would end Maru's after GSL vs the World in retrospective.

The fact that Serral doesn't live in Korea and is not korean means that he is not implied to play in Code S; he plays in WCS as you would expect a finnish player to do.
Not playing in Code S doesn't magically make you inferior to every GSL player like many seem to think, it is NOT a prerequisite for a certain threshold of skill or for being the best player in the world.
Sure, Code S is the hardest and most prestigious regional tournament in sc2; fortunately there are international tournaments where the players from every region can face each other.

Serral was the best player in 2018 because he added the best overall results in international tournaments including winning the biggest and historically more relevant one(BlizzCon) to the utter domination of his own region.

When you say "dont use GSL against Serral" then say - don't use GSL against any other top Korean. Because, and let's face it, the more you play other top Koreans, the bigger chance to lose. It's really unfair to use GSL against soO while Serral haven't done anything particulary amazing this year. soO had a group of death, he lost, boohoo. Serral didn't even qualify.

If you wanna use Code S against soO we will use Code S against Serral, that's the game.


No, that's nonsense; you could use code S against Serral if he was korean or playing in Korea. He plays in WCS as his nationality would suggest; the reasoning for which not playing in a tournament you are not expected to is worse than not doing well when playing it seems terribly flawed, to me.

soO's placement in this power ranking was acceptable but his loss in his ro16 group seems to strenghten the claim that considering him the best of the world at the moment was a it someway rushed decision, maybe dictated by the sensation generated by him breaking the Kong's curse.

so because he doesn't compete in GSL we just act like he'd win every game if he'd play in the GSL? We have no idea how Serral would do in the GSL, maybe he'd drop out in the ro16 as well.
By saying soO doesn't deserve to be ranked before Serral because he lost in the ro16 you basically say that Serral would get to the ro8 by default if he'd play in the GSL which is nonsense.


I don't doubt Serral would have last year but my personal opinion, nothing more than pure speculation; in fact, as you say, we cannot state anything about Serral's hypothetical performance in Code S just as you cannot imagine a top korean would have won every WCS like Serral did; you have to judge Serral on the tournament he actually plays(WCS Winter) or that he has played.

As for this power ranking, timing is what bothers me the most, I already said that; soO may or may not have deserved to be ahead of Serral according to how large it was the period of time this list was based upon.
Publishing it right after IEM ended was a bad decision as it was too late to depict the situation that existed before the first big championship in 2019 was played but too early to grasp the actual current balance of power considering WESG, Code S ro16 and WCS Winter final groupstage all had to be played.

By the way, didn't you say Serral was probably still the best player in the world after IEM? Now you are firmly convinced soO is?
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