EPTDH Winter: Serral Wins the Season Finals - Page 4
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tskarzyn
United States516 Posts
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kaykoose
United States2302 Posts
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UnLarva
458 Posts
On November 19 2020 13:45 kaykoose wrote: Why do people knock Serral for peaking in a "weak era" but don't give Maru that same energy? He peaked during this same time frame with his 4 GSLs. Or are we going to pretend that KeSPA dissolving and all-time great Korean players retiring had nothing to do with that because we like Maru? Great point to note! Serral must be amazing player as almost everything becomes weak when he is taking part to it, moreso if he is also successful. But it doesn't end here! Following water-tight logic, also everything he isn't participating becomes weak. Yet, there are people who accuse Serral for not weakening already weak-ass GSL Code S tourneys with his participation. Only way to save the high esteem of GSL is not to allow Serral to participate. After all he has already ruined the GSL vs The World. HSC is in complete ruins. Blizzcon's credibility and level dropped alarmingly after he competed in it, etc. IEM is still largely intact regardless of Serral's repeated attempts to lower it's standard play quality too. There was also that WESG, weak ass tourney with big pot of money, not much else. Next two tournaments will give Serral a chance to weaken ASUS ROG and TSL too, both of them are still pretty much un-weakened by him, because his uncharacteristically unimpactful weakening attempts in previous iterations of them. So, GSL is still relatively save for awhile as there are other things to make weak for Serral. Last stronghold against this all succumbing weakness will be GSL, in which multiple guys will hold multiple clean intact Serralless Code-S Season trophies, knowing that foul touch of Serral has not yet contaminated their value. I don't know what Serral gonna do with that oncoming Last Chance tournament. If he will just hibernate in his cozy home hatchery at Pornainen, Finland, during the tournament for his normal, yearly winter absence, I predict that global SC2 attendance figures will drop at least some 20%, probably more, only because of lack of Serral's tournament weakening participation. By the logic followed with GSL Code-S, his potential absence would make the Final Chance the most strongest and prestigious tournament with global participation since Katowise 2020 where Serral ultimately failed in his persistent attempts to weaken the scene, and the competition, and the game. | ||
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jpg06051992
United States580 Posts
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Snakestyle11
191 Posts
On November 19 2020 14:25 jpg06051992 wrote: Such awesome play from Serral as usual, while nobody permanently stays in peak form besides the almighty Flash, I think it's safe to say that the Finish Phenom is in pretty strong form lately. Flash probably would have never happened in a game where they keep nerfing the race that does best. A bonjwa in Starcraft2 has been nearly impossible for years because if a player could win everything, you could be sure nerfs were coming. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1236 Posts
On November 19 2020 11:14 tskarzyn wrote: Serral is easily the most reliable weekend Euro tournament player. Considering he typically only plays Koreans when they are jetlagged or playing at crazy hours on high ping, I'm not sure we really know how he stacks up against the GOAT contenders. (When he had to travel to Korea for blizzcon last year, he had a top-4 finish. Solid, but considering how strong Zerg was I'm not sure it's that impressive.) Serral won GSL vs. the World in Korea and he won BlizzCon, where the jetlag from Finland to US should be nearly the same as from South Korea... | ||
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JJH777
United States4414 Posts
On November 19 2020 13:45 kaykoose wrote: Why do people knock Serral for peaking in a "weak era" but don't give Maru that same energy? He peaked during this same time frame with his 4 GSLs. Or are we going to pretend that KeSPA dissolving and all-time great Korean players retiring had nothing to do with that because we like Maru? Because he won OSL in 2013, SSL in 2015, was the best proleague player in 2016, and spent large chunks of time as the best Terran well before 2018. | ||
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lostusername123
47 Posts
On November 20 2020 00:29 JJH777 wrote: Because he won OSL in 2013, SSL in 2015, was the best proleague player in 2016, and spent large chunks of time as the best Terran well before 2018. Competed in 10+ tournaments yearly, and won 2, before KESPA disbanded, that's not really as impressive as maru 2018+. Innovation and !Death far out performed him, it's not even close. | ||
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Alovelyusername
5 Posts
The fact of the matter is, like it or not, the competitive level is at its lowest since early WoL. There are almost no more professional teams, no Proleague. Hell, even GSL is now a round of 24 because they didnt have enough talents to fill 32 spots. Most people arguing between Maru or Serrals must be brand new sc2 fans who where never there during peak sc2, when we had PL, SSL, GSL etc. Anyonw with decent knowledge would know that while the players individual skills might be higher nowadays, the level of competition is so poor that any win is greatly diminished. There is a reason why for like the first 8 years of sc2, only 2 foreigners could compete with koreans (inconsistently): Naniwa and Stephano. The fact that we now have parity and that Serral, Reynor, Clem, Neeb etc. are all capable of consistently beating great koreans speaks volume about how weak the level of competition is right now. Its just silly to try to find a GOAT when the game is on life support. User was banned for this post. | ||
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Alovelyusername
5 Posts
On November 19 2020 13:45 kaykoose wrote: you are right, both achievements (like maru 4 gsls_ and serrals achievements are greatly diminished.Why do people knock Serral for peaking in a "weak era" but don't give Maru that same energy? He peaked during this same time frame with his 4 GSLs. Or are we going to pretend that KeSPA dissolving and all-time great Korean players retiring had nothing to do with that because we like Maru? However, Maru was often considered as the best terran in the world multiple tiems before even winning GSL. Now do I believe he is the GOAT. Not really, but he definitly has more of a shot than Serral, or TY or anyone who started peaking after PL disbanded and sc2 basically died. | ||
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JJH777
United States4414 Posts
On November 20 2020 00:43 lostusername123 wrote: Competed in 10+ tournaments yearly, and won 2, before KESPA disbanded, that's not really as impressive as maru 2018+. Innovation and !Death far out performed him, it's not even close. He wasn't competing in 10+ individual tournaments yearly. That's simply false. Go look at his results page. When you exclude qualifiers, team tournaments, and online events there are very few years that he actually played in 10 unique events. This is because he exclusively played in Korean leagues with the occasional IEM or global championship. He wasn't signing up for everything like a lot of pros likely because of either how young he was and probably still doing school work or he just hates traveling. Hard to say without someone specifically asking him. I definitely agree that Life and Inno had a better resume than Maru before 2018. Life cheated though and Inno has done a whole lot of nothing since and Maru has now surpassed both. And I like how you ignore his proleague results when that was the single most important event for Korean players back then. I guarantee the vast majority of the top Kespa pros made more from their proleague salaries than from tournament winnings from 2013-2016. | ||
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Alovelyusername
5 Posts
On November 20 2020 01:35 JJH777 wrote: Exactly. A lot of new people here dont think PL was huge because it was a team competition or whatever, but it was arguably more prestigious than GSL and evn Blizzcon. My wife is korean and while she never heard of GSL ever when she lived in SK for 25 years, she heard a lot about Proleague, and it was always broadcasted on television. Performances in PL are way more impressive than winning a WCS NA or EUHe wasn't competing in 10+ individual tournaments yearly. That's simply false. Go look at his results page. When you exclude qualifiers, team tournaments, and online events there are very few years that he actually played in 10 unique events. This is because he exclusively played in Korean leagues with the occasional IEM or global championship. He wasn't signing up for everything like a lot of pros likely because of either how young he was and probably still doing school work or he just hates traveling. Hard to say without someone specifically asking him. I definitely agree that Life and Inno had a better resume than Maru before 2018. Life cheated though and Inno has done a whole lot of nothing since and Maru has now surpassed both. And I like how you ignore his proleague results when that was the single most important event for Korean players back then. I guarantee the vast majority of the top Kespa pros made more from their proleague salaries than from tournament winnings from 2013-2016. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16008 Posts
I don't know how deluded one must be to consider a player who was only a contender during 3 years out of SC2's 10 year lifespan and except 3 tournaments only won region-locked, online or invite-only tournaments...... not to mention he played in one of the weakest eras of the game and mostly in a Zerg favored metagame. This is why everyone here makes fun of Serral when he loses. | ||
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lostusername123
47 Posts
On November 20 2020 01:35 JJH777 wrote: He wasn't competing in 10+ individual tournaments yearly. That's simply false. Go look at his results page. When you exclude qualifiers, team tournaments, and online events there are very few years that he actually played in 10 unique events. This is because he exclusively played in Korean leagues with the occasional IEM or global championship. He wasn't signing up for everything like a lot of pros likely because of either how young he was and probably still doing school work or he just hates traveling. Hard to say without someone specifically asking him. I definitely agree that Life and Inno had a better resume than Maru before 2018. Life cheated though and Inno has done a whole lot of nothing since and Maru has now surpassed both. And I like how you ignore his proleague results when that was the single most important event for Korean players back then. I guarantee the vast majority of the top Kespa pros made more from their proleague salaries than from tournament winnings from 2013-2016. " When you exclude qualifiers," You shouldn't exclude qualifiers, that's just Maru losing before getting to the tournament, he attempted to win the tournament. Lets see 2015: IEM Taipei (3-4 !Death) GSL S1 SSL s1 IEM IX again GSL S2 Code A (the f?) SSL S2 SSL S3 Kespa Cup 2015 GSL S3 Code S WCS Blizzcon (0-3) That's 10 Lets see 2014: IEM Cologne IEM WC Qualifiers (0-2 paralyze) WCS 2014 KR GSL 2014 Global Championship WCS 2014 KR s2 IEM Shenzhen IEM Toronto KESPA CUP 2014 WCS Season 3 IEM Season IX San Jose GSL Hot6ix cup That's 11 attempts at tournaments, that you'd 100% be listing as accolades if he won. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16008 Posts
On November 20 2020 04:36 lostusername123 wrote: " When you exclude qualifiers," You shouldn't exclude qualifiers, that's just Maru losing before getting to the tournament, he attempted to win the tournament. Lets see 2015: IEM Taipei (3-4 !Death) GSL S1 SSL s1 IEM IX again GSL S2 Code A (the f?) SSL S2 SSL S3 Kespa Cup 2015 GSL S3 Code S WCS Blizzcon (0-3) That's 10 Lets see 2014: IEM Cologne IEM WC Qualifiers (0-2 paralyze) WCS 2014 KR GSL 2014 Global Championship WCS 2014 KR s2 IEM Shenzhen IEM Toronto KESPA CUP 2014 WCS Season 3 IEM Season IX San Jose GSL Hot6ix cup That's 11 attempts at tournaments, that you'd 100% be listing as accolades if he won. yeah, if you're a guy who's used to the current scene where there's hardly any competition in the scene this might be a low tournament winrate I guess. When you consider that back then there were dozens of championship level koreans all playing at their peak it becomes a much better ratio. Life's and Inno's ratio wasn't much better if at all, especially considering they were also playing in lots of overseas tournaments. Life and Inno of course were overall more succesful than Maru pre-2016 but not by much. | ||
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Rubicant1
115 Posts
On November 20 2020 03:58 Charoisaur wrote: Oh man ... people are seriously mentioning Serral in a GOAT discussion... I don't know how deluded one must be to consider a player who was only a contender during 3 years out of SC2's 10 year lifespan and except 3 tournaments only won region-locked, online or invite-only tournaments...... not to mention he played in one of the weakest eras of the game and mostly in a Zerg favored metagame. This is why everyone here makes fun of Serral when he loses. Who makes fun of Serral when he loses, or any player, for that matter? What a strange, weak mentality you harbor. Serral is simply a victim of his own dominance in 2018 and was always bound to stumble somewhat after that year. People play in the circumstances they have, so it's odd to me to hold that against them. While it's certainly true that the scene is overall less competitive now, the game requires better mechanics, multitasking and strategy now than ever to succeed at consistently. Reaching late-game and being forced to play late-game is actually a thing, because the game is so much less volatile overall than it used to be. It's also not that hard to look at someone's overall play and extrapolate how they'd do in different eras. Serral, Reynor and Clem could succeed in any era, just as MVP or Life or Rain could. I watched all of those players play and all had/have uncommon speed, reactions and mechanics, even for the pro scene. So sure, Serral never would have had his reign of dominance in 2018 during the Kespa era, and maybe Reynor/Clem wouldn't find their consistent and ascending success, but throw them in the Kespa training ecosystem in an alternate realty where they could have practiced 10 hours a day with a team-house and thriving tournament scene supporting them, and I'm willing to bet they'd all have been major factors. In reality though, we'll never know and this stuff doesn't just happen in a vacuum where everyone's circumstances are the same. Goat discussions in any sport are good fun and entertaining, so if someone wants to claim Rogue or Innovation over Maru, that's what people do and it's the stuff of fandom. You and like 3-4 specific posters on TL, however, are so rabidly anti-Serral that it's embarrassing and makes it hard to take your discussion seriously when you approach something with such bias. Oh, I should add that I don't personally think Serral is the Goat, but he's certainly done enough to at least be included in the discussion, and there's time left on the proverbial clock for sc2. Maybe not a ton, but it's still running. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On November 20 2020 05:30 Rubicant1 wrote: Who makes fun of Serral when he loses, or any player, for that matter? What a strange, weak mentality you harbor. Serral is simply a victim of his own dominance in 2018 and was always bound to stumble somewhat after that year. People play in the circumstances they have, so it's odd to me to hold that against them. While it's certainly true that the scene is overall less competitive now, the game requires better mechanics, multitasking and strategy now than ever to succeed at consistently. Reaching late-game and being forced to play late-game is actually a thing, because the game is so much less volatile overall than it used to be. It's also not that hard to look at someone's overall play and extrapolate how they'd do in different eras. Serral, Reynor and Clem could succeed in any era, just as MVP or Life or Rain could. I watched all of those players stream and all had/have uncommon speed, reactions and mechanics, even for the pro scene. So sure, Serral never would have had his reign of dominance in 2018 during the Kespa era, and maybe Reynor/Clem wouldn't find their consistent and ascending success, but throw them in the Kespa training ecosystem in an alternate realty where they could have practiced 10 hours a day with a team-house and thriving tournament scene supporting them, and I'm willing to bet they'd all have been major factors. In reality though, we'll never know and this stuff doesn't just happen in a vacuum where everyone's circumstances are the same. Goat discussions in any sport are good fun and entertaining, so if someone wants to claim Rogue or Innovation over Maru, that's what people do and it's the stuff of fandom. You and like 3-4 specific posters on TL, however, are so rabidly anti-Serral that it's embarrassing and makes it hard to take your discussion seriously when you approach something with such bias. Oh, I should add that I don't personally think Serral is the Goat, but he's certainly done enough to at least be included in the discussion, and there's time left on the proverbial clock for sc2. Maybe not a ton, but it's still running. Everybody who doesn't agree with them Serral fanboys on the GOATing Serral is a SErral hater. Maybe you should try to re-read some posts. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16008 Posts
On November 20 2020 05:30 Rubicant1 wrote: People play in the circumstances they have, so it's odd to me to hold that against them. While it's certainly true that the scene is overall less competitive now, the game requires better mechanics, multitasking and strategy now than ever to succeed at consistently. Reaching late-game and being forced to play late-game is actually a thing, because the game is so much less volatile overall than it used to be. We're not comparing it to early WoL here. During 2014-15 the game was already incredibly refined. And while you're right that it's maybe unfair to Serral to hold his circumstances against him it would also be unfair to act like a tournament win now is worth as much as it was during an era where we had 30-40 koreans in teamhouses practicing 8 hours a day and playing every week in Proleague. Why do I get pissed by people mentioning Serral in a GOAT debate? Because I think the only reason he gets mentioned is because he's a foreigner and that it's insulting to the actual goat candidates who are at the top for 8 years, succesful during different metas/expansion, winning during a time when competition was 10* tougher than it is now and now a foreigner wins some tournaments and because he's a foreigner it's supposed to be so much more impressive. | ||
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Luolis
Finland7139 Posts
On November 20 2020 05:49 Charoisaur wrote: We're not comparing it to early WoL here. During 2014-15 the game was already incredibly refined. And while you're right that it's maybe unfair to Serral to hold his circumstances against him it would also be unfair to act like a tournament win now is worth as much as it was during an era where we had 30-40 koreans in teamhouses practicing 8 hours a day and playing every week in Proleague. Why do I get pissed by people mentioning Serral in a GOAT debate? Because I think the only reason he gets mentioned is because he's a foreigner and that it's insulting to the actual goat candidates who are at the top for 8 years, succesful during different metas/expansion, winning during a time when competition was 10* tougher than it is now and now a foreigner wins some tournaments and because he's a foreigner it's supposed to be so much more impressive. The reason he gets mentioned is his absolute dominance in 2018-19. I don't personally subscribe to the "serral is goat" line of thinking but i do think late 2018 Serral was peak sc2 gameplay and its not a surprise that it gets fans going. | ||
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JJH777
United States4414 Posts
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