On October 18 2022 00:36 tlnetuser108 wrote: Maru is the GOAT right now. Literally nobody else in the world right now even comes close to Maru in skill level at any race or region.
Pretty sure you had Serral in the back of your mind while writing this.
On October 18 2022 22:41 Curufinwe Feanor wrote: Funny thing... people saying MAru is the GOAT. Doesnt have a single world title. Serral has 2. And Serral is Maru's greatest nemesis according do ALigulac.
Maru has had plenty of occasions against Serral... But always drops short. Serral is waaaay more consistent.
Serral GOAT. Sorry, guys.
You know who else has 2 World Championship without (afaik) playing the strongest race by far at the time of those two WCs? sOs. Yet, almost nobody would put him in their top 5 list for GOAT, mostly because he was only good during HotS and a bit in LotV (GSL finals vs INno in 2017, vs ByuN in 2016), and didn't win a single GSL. Serral has no financial interest at going to Korea to try and play in the GSL, but most of his domestic wins (notably in 2018) were against vastly inferior competition: finals versus Has or MaNa... since back then Clem did not reach his peak and Reynor was only allowed to play in the last WCS event iirc?
Then he got challenged a lot by Reynor, and later on with the new EPT format Clem was the most dominant player in domestic tournaments (5 DH:EU victories). On the other hand, Rogue has a monstrous 3 World Championship under his belt as well as 4 GSL (although some of them were either against weaker competition, notably the 2022 one with several pros retiring, or in very favorable meta like vs Trap) and some other things. Yet, since Rogue only rose after Kespa was gone and when zerg started getting really strong, it is up to debate if he is really the GOAT, compared to Maru who was incredible on HotS (and pretty decent in WoL but too young) with the OSL/SSL and proleague domination, hero of terran (last terran hope in many tournaments) and the incredible 4 Code S in a row.
INnoVation is probably the 3rd candidate for GOAT but Maru and Rogue both got comfortably ahead of him imo. Serral would probably be around the top 5-6.
I would say Terran is the strongest race atm, at least on this map pool. So I'm not sure about your balance claims. Serral beating Has and MaNa is ofc a fair thing to say. But the thing is when the event is truly global, then Serral wins. Do you really think herO or Ragnarok would beat Serral in a finals?. Maru always had a weakness to more cheesy play. Be it Protoss or Zerg.
The "weakness to cheesy play" is not unique to Maru. It's a function of the races.
On October 18 2022 00:36 tlnetuser108 wrote: Maru is the GOAT right now. Literally nobody else in the world right now even comes close to Maru in skill level at any race or region.
Pretty sure you had Serral in the back of your mind while writing this.
On October 18 2022 22:41 Curufinwe Feanor wrote: Funny thing... people saying MAru is the GOAT. Doesnt have a single world title. Serral has 2. And Serral is Maru's greatest nemesis according do ALigulac.
Maru has had plenty of occasions against Serral... But always drops short. Serral is waaaay more consistent.
Serral GOAT. Sorry, guys.
You know who else has 2 World Championship without (afaik) playing the strongest race by far at the time of those two WCs? sOs. Yet, almost nobody would put him in their top 5 list for GOAT, mostly because he was only good during HotS and a bit in LotV (GSL finals vs INno in 2017, vs ByuN in 2016), and didn't win a single GSL. Serral has no financial interest at going to Korea to try and play in the GSL, but most of his domestic wins (notably in 2018) were against vastly inferior competition: finals versus Has or MaNa... since back then Clem did not reach his peak and Reynor was only allowed to play in the last WCS event iirc?
Then he got challenged a lot by Reynor, and later on with the new EPT format Clem was the most dominant player in domestic tournaments (5 DH:EU victories). On the other hand, Rogue has a monstrous 3 World Championship under his belt as well as 4 GSL (although some of them were either against weaker competition, notably the 2022 one with several pros retiring, or in very favorable meta like vs Trap) and some other things. Yet, since Rogue only rose after Kespa was gone and when zerg started getting really strong, it is up to debate if he is really the GOAT, compared to Maru who was incredible on HotS (and pretty decent in WoL but too young) with the OSL/SSL and proleague domination, hero of terran (last terran hope in many tournaments) and the incredible 4 Code S in a row.
INnoVation is probably the 3rd candidate for GOAT but Maru and Rogue both got comfortably ahead of him imo. Serral would probably be around the top 5-6.
I would say Terran is the strongest race atm, at least on this map pool. So I'm not sure about your balance claims. Serral beating Has and MaNa is ofc a fair thing to say. But the thing is when the event is truly global, then Serral wins. Do you really think herO or Ragnarok would beat Serral in a finals?. Maru always had a weakness to more cheesy play. Be it Protoss or Zerg.
Haven't all 4 top zergs won at least one premier tournament in this map pool? Unless they're intrinsically better, the map pool is definitely not terran favored. Also funny that you mentioned herO not being able to beat serral in a final 'cause he had a 0% winrate in series against maru prior to beating maru in the gsl s2 finals. Chances are herO would've beat serral in that gsl finals too
But here's the kicker, maru competes in serral's turf and has succeeded at it. Serral refuses to go to korea. A true goat would succeed in any type of tournament and regardless of how strong his race is. Serral has never performed well when his race hasn't been strong.
A true goat would also be the undisputed best player of their race for a long stretch of time. Serral again fails at this. Since 2018 there were whole years where serral wasn't even the top zerg. He was the undisputed top zerg *only* in 2018. In every other year his achievements have been comparable to rogue's, dark's, and reynor's. You can't be the best overall player when you're not even the best player of your race. Maru has been the undisputed best terran for longer than serral has even been playing competitively and succeeds despite every other terran shitting the bed
GOAT=Greatest of all time. There will always be one. It has nothing to do with how much ahead of the curve he is or what he has pulled off narratively compared to the others.
The "weakness to cheesy play" is not unique to Maru. It's a function of the races.
This isn't true. How would he win 4 GSL's in a row if this was the case. Also TY manhandled PartinG, who had to rely on aggressive play to win. If anything it's that Protoss NEED to cheese, or bring aggressive, or greedy play to eek a big enough advantage to defeat Terran before they get set up. Whereas Terran need to buckle down and thwart the 'bullshit.' Where this gets a bit more detailed is in how much Terran needs to buckle down, versus not letting Protoss get away with things.
Answer me this. Is a Protoss capable of winning 4 GSL's in a row. You don't have to pick specific players, but is it even a possibility, as a Protoss user?
On October 20 2022 18:31 ejozl wrote: GOAT=Greatest of all time. There will always be one. It has nothing to do with how much ahead of the curve he is or what he has pulled off narratively compared to the others.
The "weakness to cheesy play" is not unique to Maru. It's a function of the races.
This isn't true. How would he win 4 GSL's in a row if this was the case. Also TY manhandled PartinG, who had to rely on aggressive play to win. If anything it's that Protoss NEED to cheese, or bring aggressive, or greedy play to eek a big enough advantage to defeat Terran before they get set up. Whereas Terran need to buckle down and thwart the 'bullshit.' Where this gets a bit more detailed is in how much Terran needs to buckle down, versus not letting Protoss get away with things.
Answer me this. Is a Protoss capable of winning 4 GSL's in a row. You don't have to pick specific players, but is it even a possibility, as a Protoss user?
Zerg / terran / protoss aren’t capable of winning 4 GSL in a row in 2018-2019 (nowadays it is a possibility given there are far less top players, but it is still incredibly hard). That might be why Maru is called the fourth race, what he has achieved is basically the impossible. Even 3 GSL in a row is imo impossible yet Maru has done it, let alone 4 in a row. That just does not happen in a highly competitive 1v1 game. Such domination happened in Halo 2 with Final Boss but it is a team game and the scene was not as professional as sc2, with many part time players / students even in the best teams.
I know it was the first GSL and all and these guys were top players, but sheesh the games were so bad lol. There was no back and forth or trading. It was just nothing happening for 10 minutes, then Maru moved out with his first army and wiped out Cerra.
On October 20 2022 18:31 ejozl wrote: GOAT=Greatest of all time. There will always be one. It has nothing to do with how much ahead of the curve he is or what he has pulled off narratively compared to the others.
The "weakness to cheesy play" is not unique to Maru. It's a function of the races.
This isn't true. How would he win 4 GSL's in a row if this was the case. Also TY manhandled PartinG, who had to rely on aggressive play to win. If anything it's that Protoss NEED to cheese, or bring aggressive, or greedy play to eek a big enough advantage to defeat Terran before they get set up. Whereas Terran need to buckle down and thwart the 'bullshit.' Where this gets a bit more detailed is in how much Terran needs to buckle down, versus not letting Protoss get away with things.
Answer me this. Is a Protoss capable of winning 4 GSL's in a row. You don't have to pick specific players, but is it even a possibility, as a Protoss user?
Zerg / terran / protoss aren’t capable of winning 4 GSL in a row in 2018-2019 (nowadays it is a possibility given there are far less top players, but it is still incredibly hard). That might be why Maru is called the fourth race, what he has achieved is basically the impossible. Even 3 GSL in a row is imo impossible yet Maru has done it, let alone 4 in a row. That just does not happen in a highly competitive 1v1 game. Such domination happened in Halo 2 with Final Boss but it is a team game and the scene was not as professional as sc2, with many part time players / students even in the best teams.
Exactly, if Maru hadn't done this we would also say it's 100% impossible for a terran to do this.
On October 18 2022 00:36 tlnetuser108 wrote: Maru is the GOAT right now. Literally nobody else in the world right now even comes close to Maru in skill level at any race or region.
Pretty sure you had Serral in the back of your mind while writing this.
On October 18 2022 22:41 Curufinwe Feanor wrote: Funny thing... people saying MAru is the GOAT. Doesnt have a single world title. Serral has 2. And Serral is Maru's greatest nemesis according do ALigulac.
Maru has had plenty of occasions against Serral... But always drops short. Serral is waaaay more consistent.
Serral GOAT. Sorry, guys.
You know who else has 2 World Championship without (afaik) playing the strongest race by far at the time of those two WCs? sOs. Yet, almost nobody would put him in their top 5 list for GOAT, mostly because he was only good during HotS and a bit in LotV (GSL finals vs INno in 2017, vs ByuN in 2016), and didn't win a single GSL. Serral has no financial interest at going to Korea to try and play in the GSL, but most of his domestic wins (notably in 2018) were against vastly inferior competition: finals versus Has or MaNa... since back then Clem did not reach his peak and Reynor was only allowed to play in the last WCS event iirc?
Then he got challenged a lot by Reynor, and later on with the new EPT format Clem was the most dominant player in domestic tournaments (5 DH:EU victories). On the other hand, Rogue has a monstrous 3 World Championship under his belt as well as 4 GSL (although some of them were either against weaker competition, notably the 2022 one with several pros retiring, or in very favorable meta like vs Trap) and some other things. Yet, since Rogue only rose after Kespa was gone and when zerg started getting really strong, it is up to debate if he is really the GOAT, compared to Maru who was incredible on HotS (and pretty decent in WoL but too young) with the OSL/SSL and proleague domination, hero of terran (last terran hope in many tournaments) and the incredible 4 Code S in a row.
INnoVation is probably the 3rd candidate for GOAT but Maru and Rogue both got comfortably ahead of him imo. Serral would probably be around the top 5-6.
I would say Terran is the strongest race atm, at least on this map pool. So I'm not sure about your balance claims. Serral beating Has and MaNa is ofc a fair thing to say. But the thing is when the event is truly global, then Serral wins. Do you really think herO or Ragnarok would beat Serral in a finals?. And Maru always had a weakness to more cheesy play, be it Protoss or Zerg, making it harder for him to reach the finals.
herO definitely, why wouldn't he be able to? Ragnarok probably not, but he's also not capable of beating Maru.
On October 18 2022 22:41 Curufinwe Feanor wrote: Funny thing... people saying MAru is the GOAT. Doesnt have a single world title. Serral has 2. And Serral is Maru's greatest nemesis according do ALigulac.
Maru has had plenty of occasions against Serral... But always drops short. Serral is waaaay more consistent.
Serral GOAT. Sorry, guys.
GOATs don't lose often to other players of the same race, let alone getting 4:0'ed (by Dark, Reynor, and very nearly by Rogue).
Take away the race advantage, and Serral isn't nearly as impressive.
Anyone who's played Terran will understand how Maru has taken the race to its limit fairly consistently over a decade. Despite the obvious current race disadvantage he can still win championships. This is why he is the GOAT.
thank you! I said the same thing, Maru dominates in TVT, yet I see serral losing 0-4 in zvz. Goats don't lose 0-4 in mirror matches. Everybody knows Zerg is OP since LOTV.
On October 24 2022 01:25 ejozl wrote: Are you confusing the term with bonjwa, or why does a GOAT have to be a certain way. Surely all that matters are results?
If results are all that matters how is Serral the goat over Rogue/Maru or even players like Inno? To think Serral is the goat you have to give some weird weight to consistency or winrate because he's really only won a handful of major tournaments with Koreans present. Pretty much just Blizzcon/IEM Katowice/2 GSL vs the World/3 Season finals/1 TSL/3 or 4 HSC. Obviously that's an amazing list and puts him in the top handful of players in the world but it doesn't compare to Maru's 5 GSL, OSL, SSL, Super Tournament, WESG, Proleague goat, Season Finals, Last Chance, KoB. And it also doesn't compare to Rogues: Blizzcon, 2 x IEM Katowice,4 x GSL, 2xSuper Tournament, IEM Shanghai, TSL.
On October 20 2022 18:31 ejozl wrote: GOAT=Greatest of all time. There will always be one. It has nothing to do with how much ahead of the curve he is or what he has pulled off narratively compared to the others.
The "weakness to cheesy play" is not unique to Maru. It's a function of the races.
This isn't true. How would he win 4 GSL's in a row if this was the case. Also TY manhandled PartinG, who had to rely on aggressive play to win. If anything it's that Protoss NEED to cheese, or bring aggressive, or greedy play to eek a big enough advantage to defeat Terran before they get set up. Whereas Terran need to buckle down and thwart the 'bullshit.' Where this gets a bit more detailed is in how much Terran needs to buckle down, versus not letting Protoss get away with things.
Answer me this. Is a Protoss capable of winning 4 GSL's in a row. You don't have to pick specific players, but is it even a possibility, as a Protoss user?
Yes, Ty once beat a protoss player in a series. Bringing up a similar victory from Maru would not change the fact that both lost to bad toss players many times.
Talent pool aside, Protoss won't win 4 GSL's in part because of how coin flippy the race is. An individual player is unlikely to flip heads enough times in a single tournament to win, but toss as a race is likely to coin flip a superior player (Maru, Ty, etc) out of a tournament at some point.
Zerg is a bit unique in that it can counter almost any cheese as long as it doesn't skimp on queens or ovie scouting. If Serral played Terran, I do not think he would have anywhere near the consistency he enjoys as Zerg.
On October 24 2022 01:25 ejozl wrote: Are you confusing the term with bonjwa, or why does a GOAT have to be a certain way. Surely all that matters are results?
If results are all that matters how is Serral the goat over Rogue/Maru or even players like Inno? To think Serral is the goat you have to give some weird weight to consistency or winrate because he's really only won a handful of major tournaments with Koreans present. Pretty much just Blizzcon/IEM Katowice/2 GSL vs the World/3 Season finals/1 TSL/3 or 4 HSC. Obviously that's an amazing list and puts him in the top handful of players in the world but it doesn't compare to Maru's 5 GSL, OSL, SSL, Super Tournament, WESG, Proleague goat, Season Finals, Last Chance, KoB. And it also doesn't compare to Rogues: Blizzcon, 2 x IEM Katowice,4 x GSL, 2xSuper Tournament, IEM Shanghai, TSL.
I would just say that since the rise of Serral and further fall of the Korean scene, a GSL tournament shouldn't be put in the same light that it used to. With no Rogue it's just Dark&Maru, so is that worth more than a tournament with Serral&Reynor. I don't know. It's definitely not worth more than a tournament with Serral,Reynor,Dark and Maru.
On October 20 2022 18:31 ejozl wrote: GOAT=Greatest of all time. There will always be one. It has nothing to do with how much ahead of the curve he is or what he has pulled off narratively compared to the others.
The "weakness to cheesy play" is not unique to Maru. It's a function of the races.
This isn't true. How would he win 4 GSL's in a row if this was the case. Also TY manhandled PartinG, who had to rely on aggressive play to win. If anything it's that Protoss NEED to cheese, or bring aggressive, or greedy play to eek a big enough advantage to defeat Terran before they get set up. Whereas Terran need to buckle down and thwart the 'bullshit.' Where this gets a bit more detailed is in how much Terran needs to buckle down, versus not letting Protoss get away with things.
Answer me this. Is a Protoss capable of winning 4 GSL's in a row. You don't have to pick specific players, but is it even a possibility, as a Protoss user?
Yes, Ty once beat a protoss player in a series. Bringing up a similar victory from Maru would not change the fact that both lost to bad toss players many times.
Talent pool aside, Protoss won't win 4 GSL's in part because of how coin flippy the race is. An individual player is unlikely to flip heads enough times in a single tournament to win, but toss as a race is likely to coin flip a superior player (Maru, Ty, etc) out of a tournament at some point.
So is it really a terran thing to have a weakness to cheese, when all you mention is vs Protoss, where you also say that Protoss is coinflippy. The thing is it goes both ways. If a surperior Terran player can lose to a worse Protoss player, due to the nature of the coinflipping, then a surperior Protoss players should also lose to worse Terran players, due to the coinflipping nature of Protoss. Furthermore, if a coinflip is 50% it would mean that the more you coinflip the more your winrate should skew towards 50%. Whereas all pros have an above 50% winrate, this would mean that Protoss pros should have lower winrates. How can I not use this fact, to argue that Zest is perhaps an even greater player than Maru, rather than Maru loses to worse Protoss players, if it weren't for that, Maru would win EVEN MORE tournaments.
Zerg is a bit unique in that it can counter almost any cheese as long as it doesn't skimp on queens or ovie scouting. If Serral played Terran, I do not think he would have anywhere near the consistency he enjoys as Zerg.
I hold the belief that Zerg benefits from HSC like marathons, while Terran benefits from GSL, preparation style.
On October 24 2022 01:25 ejozl wrote: Are you confusing the term with bonjwa, or why does a GOAT have to be a certain way. Surely all that matters are results?
If results are all that matters how is Serral the goat over Rogue/Maru or even players like Inno? To think Serral is the goat you have to give some weird weight to consistency or winrate because he's really only won a handful of major tournaments with Koreans present. Pretty much just Blizzcon/IEM Katowice/2 GSL vs the World/3 Season finals/1 TSL/3 or 4 HSC. Obviously that's an amazing list and puts him in the top handful of players in the world but it doesn't compare to Maru's 5 GSL, OSL, SSL, Super Tournament, WESG, Proleague goat, Season Finals, Last Chance, KoB. And it also doesn't compare to Rogues: Blizzcon, 2 x IEM Katowice,4 x GSL, 2xSuper Tournament, IEM Shanghai, TSL.
I would just say that since the rise of Serral and further fall of the Korean scene, a GSL tournament shouldn't be put in the same light that it used to. With no Rogue it's just Dark&Maru, so is that worth more than a tournament with Serral&Reynor. I don't know. It's definitely not worth more than a tournament with Serral,Reynor,Dark and Maru.
This last GSL was not "just Dark & Maru" though? herO was the latest champion and also had strong results internationally, he is the best protoss in the world at the moment by a large margin (MaxPax doesn't play offline and has been subpar outside of the small online cups, as we have seen in DH:EU, and ShoWTimE is not at herO's level). Also, if you speak about tournaments with "Serral & Reynor", do you realize that Reynor actually played in the latest (one of the weakest indeed) GSL and dropped out in the first groupstage? That's how stacked GSL is, even in its weakest version it is still a very difficult tournament to win.
On October 24 2022 01:25 ejozl wrote: Are you confusing the term with bonjwa, or why does a GOAT have to be a certain way. Surely all that matters are results?
If results are all that matters how is Serral the goat over Rogue/Maru or even players like Inno? To think Serral is the goat you have to give some weird weight to consistency or winrate because he's really only won a handful of major tournaments with Koreans present. Pretty much just Blizzcon/IEM Katowice/2 GSL vs the World/3 Season finals/1 TSL/3 or 4 HSC. Obviously that's an amazing list and puts him in the top handful of players in the world but it doesn't compare to Maru's 5 GSL, OSL, SSL, Super Tournament, WESG, Proleague goat, Season Finals, Last Chance, KoB. And it also doesn't compare to Rogues: Blizzcon, 2 x IEM Katowice,4 x GSL, 2xSuper Tournament, IEM Shanghai, TSL.
I would just say that since the rise of Serral and further fall of the Korean scene, a GSL tournament shouldn't be put in the same light that it used to. With no Rogue it's just Dark&Maru, so is that worth more than a tournament with Serral&Reynor. I don't know. It's definitely not worth more than a tournament with Serral,Reynor,Dark and Maru.
This last GSL was not "just Dark & Maru" though? herO was the latest champion and also had strong results internationally, he is the best protoss in the world at the moment by a large margin (MaxPax doesn't play offline and has been subpar outside of the small online cups, as we have seen in DH:EU, and ShoWTimE is not at herO's level). Also, if you speak about tournaments with "Serral & Reynor", do you realize that Reynor actually played in the latest (one of the weakest indeed) GSL and dropped out in the first groupstage? That's how stacked GSL is, even in its weakest version it is still a very difficult tournament to win.
Where was the last gsl stacked ? It was just dark,hero, reynor and maru
On October 24 2022 01:25 ejozl wrote: Are you confusing the term with bonjwa, or why does a GOAT have to be a certain way. Surely all that matters are results?
If results are all that matters how is Serral the goat over Rogue/Maru or even players like Inno? To think Serral is the goat you have to give some weird weight to consistency or winrate because he's really only won a handful of major tournaments with Koreans present. Pretty much just Blizzcon/IEM Katowice/2 GSL vs the World/3 Season finals/1 TSL/3 or 4 HSC. Obviously that's an amazing list and puts him in the top handful of players in the world but it doesn't compare to Maru's 5 GSL, OSL, SSL, Super Tournament, WESG, Proleague goat, Season Finals, Last Chance, KoB. And it also doesn't compare to Rogues: Blizzcon, 2 x IEM Katowice,4 x GSL, 2xSuper Tournament, IEM Shanghai, TSL.
I would just say that since the rise of Serral and further fall of the Korean scene, a GSL tournament shouldn't be put in the same light that it used to. With no Rogue it's just Dark&Maru, so is that worth more than a tournament with Serral&Reynor. I don't know. It's definitely not worth more than a tournament with Serral,Reynor,Dark and Maru.
This last GSL was not "just Dark & Maru" though? herO was the latest champion and also had strong results internationally, he is the best protoss in the world at the moment by a large margin (MaxPax doesn't play offline and has been subpar outside of the small online cups, as we have seen in DH:EU, and ShoWTimE is not at herO's level). Also, if you speak about tournaments with "Serral & Reynor", do you realize that Reynor actually played in the latest (one of the weakest indeed) GSL and dropped out in the first groupstage? That's how stacked GSL is, even in its weakest version it is still a very difficult tournament to win.
Where was the last gsl stacked ? It was just dark,hero, reynor and maru
Who was missing? Basically only Serral (and maybe Clem but he hasn't really proved to be a championship contender in international tournaments yet).
And while I agree that a GSL in 2022 isn't worth at much as it used to be, when Maru achieved the 4-peat, GSL was still extremely competitive with Rogue, soO, Dark, Stats, Trap, Zest, Classic, herO, sOs, Inno, Gumiho etc all still being active and pre-military. And also by the same logic as "GSL is not worth as much anymore" you could also argue that IEM Katowice in 2022 isn't worth as much anymore because the number of true championship contenders has sharply declined there as well
EPT
