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On March 04 2023 02:00 SHODAN wrote:
Serral never won a GSL and Maru never won a Blizzcon. I guess one of those needed to happen during the most competitive era of SC2 in order to bring the GOAT debate to a conclusion. Maru, Rogue and Serral will go on being more or less equal rivals and all have a strong claim to being the greatest SC2 player. I personally give it to Maru because he achieved his success with terran, during patches that were unfavorable, whereas Rogue and Serral never really had to worry about balance. I also think his proleague performances, the prestige of the G5L trophy, and the sheer longevity of Maru in SC2 counts for a lot.
there is a huge difference.
Maru TRIED to win blizzcon/WC every - single - year.
Serral never TRIED to win GSL. he went to GSL vs the world once and WON in his first try beating every top korean player.
if serral went to korea in 2018 and played gsl, there is no way he wouldn't have won at least 1, if not 2.
Maru's longeviety is overrated. he didn't win a whole lot before 2017. he was always considered a great talent, but he didn't really win a lot and consistantly. GSL happens 3 times a year, the status of a GSL win is absolutely overrated. it's nowhere near as hard to win a gsl compared to an international Lan event.
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2 starleagues between 2013 and 2016 puts him on a very small elite player list. Multiple starleagues champions were uncommon back then. The scene was way more volatile. He's also the SC2 proleague GOAT which was the most important tournament for Koreans during that era. He and all the other proleague players gave up potential appearances in many international events to be there for proleague every week.
KR Starleagues before 2018 and were harder than global events because 90% of the top 50 was in Korea back then. Maru had several high profile second places and top 4s before 2018 as well. Maru was already top 3-4 Terran all time before his 2018 run and all his wins since then.
What Serral may or may not have won if he played in GSL is irrelevant. For the record he would have been far from guaranteed to win a GSL even if he played in all 3 during 2018. If nothing else he 100% would have not won the first 2 because they were both over not long after Maru bopped him at WESG in a series that was not close at all.
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On March 04 2023 03:07 JJH777 wrote:
2 starleagues between 2013 and 2016 puts him on a very small elite player list. Multiple starleagues champions were uncommon back then. The scene was way more volatile. He's also the SC2 proleague GOAT which was the most important tournament for Koreans during that era. He and all the other proleague players gave up potential appearances in many international events to be there for proleague every week.
KR Starleagues before 2018 and were harder than global events because 90% of the top 50 was in Korea back then. Maru had several high profile second places and top 4s before 2018 as well. Maru was already top 3-4 Terran all time before his 2018 run and all his wins since then.
What Serral may or may not have won if he played in GSL is irrelevant. For the record he would have been far from guaranteed to win a GSL even if he played in all 3 during 2018. If nothing else he 100% would have not won the first 2 because they were both over not long after Maru bopped him at WESG in a series that was not close at all.
How can someone be this wrong
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On March 04 2023 03:14 BelethielQT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 03:07 JJH777 wrote:
2 starleagues between 2013 and 2016 puts him on a very small elite player list. Multiple starleagues champions were uncommon back then. The scene was way more volatile. He's also the SC2 proleague GOAT which was the most important tournament for Koreans during that era. He and all the other proleague players gave up potential appearances in many international events to be there for proleague every week.
KR Starleagues before 2018 and were harder than global events because 90% of the top 50 was in Korea back then. Maru had several high profile second places and top 4s before 2018 as well. Maru was already top 3-4 Terran all time before his 2018 run and all his wins since then.
What Serral may or may not have won if he played in GSL is irrelevant. For the record he would have been far from guaranteed to win a GSL even if he played in all 3 during 2018. If nothing else he 100% would have not won the first 2 because they were both over not long after Maru bopped him at WESG in a series that was not close at all. How can someone be this wrong
Everything in that post is right much of it is just fact. Sorry the truth upsets you.
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It will never cease to amaze me how people only argue about 'wins', as if high finishes don't mean anything. The difference between a 1st place finish, a 2nd place finish, heck even a top 4 finish is oftentimes incredibly small, the top players can beat each other rather easily, and that was even more true in the most competitive era of sc2 which was during the kespa reign. Neglecting this and making it all about 1st places just shows how binary people think, instead of thinking in probabilities / spectrums.
I think JJH777 did a fairly good job characterizing the scene before proleague ended, another tournament people always seem to completely neglect for no reason whatsoever, doing it a huge injustice.
Though i have to say that the claim that serral wouldn't have won the first two seasons in 2018 for sure is silly, it doesn't work like that 
What people don't really talk about much anymore is that serral's raise to fame came after sc2's peak, the scene simply wasn't the same anymore and that has to matter somewhat (it also has to for maru's gsl wins btw, for any result after the exodus), you can only beat what is in front of you, your peers, but from a historic perspective one cannot just neglect what happened after kespa was over, it's silly to do so. It's seemingly only so popular because casters and other prominent figures had to sell that the scene was better than ever, every new champion was better than the last, every tournament more bombastic and important, and people gobble that up for the hype's sake. The truth is quite different, the talent pool was shrinking year after year, the infrastructure of teamhouses and coaching vanished, everything became less professional and less competitive. Sc2 has been shrinking ever since, almost no new 'talent' coming in to challenge anyone established, the contrary, people left the scene and moved on. This isn't just a 2023 thing now after the news of prize pools evaporating (though we only speculate at this point as there have been no retirements yet i think), this is a reality since forever, with the most obvious impact directly after proleague was gone.
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On March 04 2023 03:48 The_Red_Viper wrote:Though i have to say that the claim that serral wouldn't have won the first two seasons in 2018 for sure is silly, it doesn't work like that
Did you watch the Maru vs Serral series at WESG on March 17, 2018? The games and series were not close at all. GSL season 2 took place from April to June that year. Expecting him to turn that result around in a month or two in an environment where Maru has always performed better than he does at international events is what's silly. GSL season 2 was over before he won anything with Koreans. He lost to Classic and soo during that timeframe as well. It would be extremely unlikely.
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On March 04 2023 03:21 JJH777 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 03:14 BelethielQT wrote:On March 04 2023 03:07 JJH777 wrote:
2 starleagues between 2013 and 2016 puts him on a very small elite player list. Multiple starleagues champions were uncommon back then. The scene was way more volatile. He's also the SC2 proleague GOAT which was the most important tournament for Koreans during that era. He and all the other proleague players gave up potential appearances in many international events to be there for proleague every week.
KR Starleagues before 2018 and were harder than global events because 90% of the top 50 was in Korea back then. Maru had several high profile second places and top 4s before 2018 as well. Maru was already top 3-4 Terran all time before his 2018 run and all his wins since then.
What Serral may or may not have won if he played in GSL is irrelevant. For the record he would have been far from guaranteed to win a GSL even if he played in all 3 during 2018. If nothing else he 100% would have not won the first 2 because they were both over not long after Maru bopped him at WESG in a series that was not close at all. How can someone be this wrong Everything in that post is right much of it is just fact. Sorry the truth upsets you.
Imagine calling opinions facts
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On March 04 2023 04:16 BelethielQT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 03:21 JJH777 wrote:On March 04 2023 03:14 BelethielQT wrote:On March 04 2023 03:07 JJH777 wrote:
2 starleagues between 2013 and 2016 puts him on a very small elite player list. Multiple starleagues champions were uncommon back then. The scene was way more volatile. He's also the SC2 proleague GOAT which was the most important tournament for Koreans during that era. He and all the other proleague players gave up potential appearances in many international events to be there for proleague every week.
KR Starleagues before 2018 and were harder than global events because 90% of the top 50 was in Korea back then. Maru had several high profile second places and top 4s before 2018 as well. Maru was already top 3-4 Terran all time before his 2018 run and all his wins since then.
What Serral may or may not have won if he played in GSL is irrelevant. For the record he would have been far from guaranteed to win a GSL even if he played in all 3 during 2018. If nothing else he 100% would have not won the first 2 because they were both over not long after Maru bopped him at WESG in a series that was not close at all. How can someone be this wrong Everything in that post is right much of it is just fact. Sorry the truth upsets you. Imagine calling opinions facts
I said much of it is facts. There are like 2 sentences that are my opinion based on the facts.
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On March 04 2023 02:54 KalWarkov wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 02:00 SHODAN wrote:
Serral never won a GSL and Maru never won a Blizzcon. I guess one of those needed to happen during the most competitive era of SC2 in order to bring the GOAT debate to a conclusion. Maru, Rogue and Serral will go on being more or less equal rivals and all have a strong claim to being the greatest SC2 player. I personally give it to Maru because he achieved his success with terran, during patches that were unfavorable, whereas Rogue and Serral never really had to worry about balance. I also think his proleague performances, the prestige of the G5L trophy, and the sheer longevity of Maru in SC2 counts for a lot. there is a huge difference. Maru TRIED to win blizzcon/WC every - single - year. Serral never TRIED to win GSL. he went to GSL vs the world once and WON in his first try beating every top korean player. if serral went to korea in 2018 and played gsl, there is no way he wouldn't have won at least 1, if not 2. Maru's longeviety is overrated. he didn't win a whole lot before 2017. he was always considered a great talent, but he didn't really win a lot and consistantly. GSL happens 3 times a year, the status of a GSL win is absolutely overrated. it's nowhere near as hard to win a gsl compared to an international Lan event.
Good points, when determining "greatest" and not "most achieved", it shouldn't just be about the # of 1st places you win, but also how many tries it takes you, and to a lesser extent your head 2 head performance vs other players (kind of like the whole "how was your bracket luck" thing).
That's why I have Dark as high as MVP on my list, because despite a little less 1st places, he has a TON of 2nd/3rd/4th places. I think in certain situations, 2 2nd places can be looked at as near equivalent to a 1st place + top 8 finish. It's less achievements but about the same prize money, so are we just going to fully excuse the other player finishing only Top 8 that one tourny?
Maru had a lot more years to rack up his titles, whereas Serral has won multiple regionals a year for the past 5 years, and also won 2 world championships. And many of those regionals were DH/TSL/HSC where Koreans were present, and they had prize pools pretty equivalent to a GSL or GSL Super. And ofc the 2 GSL vs the Worlds he won, showing he has a very high success rate of winning GSL titles. Even if he wouldn't do as well at normal GSL, he at least does very well at weekend tournaments.
In Maru's defense, I personally also factor in a bit how many 2nd places and 3-4ths you get, etc.
Maru has gotten 2nd place at 2 world championships which is still very impressive, even if he didn't take it all the way home at one of those two, he was only 1 match away. And he's gotten a ton of 2nd place and 3-4th places in all kinds of tournies.
Also, he got a WESG win - which is pretty hard to weigh accurately. It's a shit ton of money, the won he won gave him $200k for first place, so it's equivalent to a real World Championship. Its prestige is more questionable, because the tournament has a shorter history and maybe other factors, but it does have regional qualifiers, and there are a few KR players there (Maru Dark Classic, so the top 3 basically), as well as top foreigner players.
But I think the WESG win should count for something significant still because of the money, having qualifiers, and having a good spread of top players from different regions. I would count it at around a GSL, definitely less than a WCS/IEM world championship.
If I look at the WESG win, and his performance at WCS/IEM world championships, he got 2 2nd places, and 4 top 4 places at WCS/IEM world championships since 2013. So I think having 6 really good placements at world championships over 10 years still helps buff his portfolio up. But it does pale in comparison if you view it as him only getting 6 good placements across ~18 world championships over the last 10 years, which is a good case going for why Rogue or Serral are better/greater than Maru.
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On March 04 2023 04:12 JJH777 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 03:48 The_Red_Viper wrote:Though i have to say that the claim that serral wouldn't have won the first two seasons in 2018 for sure is silly, it doesn't work like that Did you watch the Maru vs Serral series at WESG on March 17, 2018? The games and series were not close at all. GSL season 2 took place from April to June that year. Expecting him to turn that result around in a month or two in an environment where Maru has always performed better than he does at international events is what's silly. GSL season 2 was over before he won anything with Koreans. He lost to Classic and soo during that timeframe as well. It would be extremely unlikely.
It might be unlikely, but any particular series is just one data point and the 'worse' player wins series regularly, that's just how it is. I just take issue with your 100% statement there. It's unnecessary for the broader picture anyway.
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On March 04 2023 02:54 KalWarkov wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 02:00 SHODAN wrote:
Serral never won a GSL and Maru never won a Blizzcon. I guess one of those needed to happen during the most competitive era of SC2 in order to bring the GOAT debate to a conclusion. Maru, Rogue and Serral will go on being more or less equal rivals and all have a strong claim to being the greatest SC2 player. I personally give it to Maru because he achieved his success with terran, during patches that were unfavorable, whereas Rogue and Serral never really had to worry about balance. I also think his proleague performances, the prestige of the G5L trophy, and the sheer longevity of Maru in SC2 counts for a lot. there is a huge difference. Maru TRIED to win blizzcon/WC every - single - year. Serral never TRIED to win GSL. he went to GSL vs the world once and WON in his first try beating every top korean player. if serral went to korea in 2018 and played gsl, there is no way he wouldn't have won at least 1, if not 2. Maru's longeviety is overrated. he didn't win a whole lot before 2017. he was always considered a great talent, but he didn't really win a lot and consistantly. GSL happens 3 times a year, the status of a GSL win is absolutely overrated. it's nowhere near as hard to win a gsl compared to an international Lan event.
In what universe should not even trying to participate in a tournament be rated higher than trying and "failing" (failing in this case means reaching the ro4 4 times and the finals 1 time)?
You say there is no way Serral wouldn't have won at least 1 GSL if he tried, however we'd say the same about Maru if he never tried playing in World Championships.
Hypothetical "he might have maybe won one" titles don't count when measuring Goat
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On March 04 2023 02:16 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2023 09:46 Charoisaur wrote:On March 03 2023 00:18 Xain0n wrote:On March 02 2023 22:17 Charoisaur wrote:On March 02 2023 21:15 Xain0n wrote:On March 02 2023 18:49 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On March 02 2023 16:15 BelethielQT wrote:On March 02 2023 11:11 [Phantom] wrote:
I think we can't say for sure until we see how many korean pros keep playing.
Though I don't think you can claim there is a GOAT.
Imo, you can claim the following:
Best player in WoL: Mvp
Best player in HotS: Life Maru? sOs? Innovation?
Best player in Lotv from 2015 to 2016 (kespa fall) This one is tricky, but maybe Maru/Rain/Innovation
Best player in Lotv post 2016-2021, The "zerg era". This era is tainted by the destruction of the korean scene. Make no mistake. It is nocoincidence that foreigner players weren't able to truly be competitive (except stephano sometimes) with koreans until KeSPA died, and anyone saying otherwise is either cluelessly biased or malicious in their argument. In this Period Serral has a case of being the best player, but Maru also has a case as well, and Rogue, which isn't a fan favorite but boy is he good.
As for overall best player, it's impossible to say. It's definitely not serral, that's for sure. He only got there when Korean scene exploded and Zerg became OP (and yes, it is also not a coincidence that the only foreigners to ever truly compete vs Koreans are zerg).
If I had to say someone it would have to be Maru for being consistently good since 2010. No other player comes close. This guy is such a troll Are you talking about Phantom? His picks are all super reasonable, and the same ones I would say. Personally I don't understand people saying Serral is the GOAT. Based on titles, most of his wins are EU tournaments with little to no KR talent there. Sure he's won like a GSL vs the World, and an IEM Katowice, but there are many other players who have also won a world championship (Katowice or Blizzcon/WCS), and that alone doesn't make them the best. Do I think that he was the GOAT in skill at a certain point of time? Yeah, I do think he was the best player when he won Katowice. But he didn't maintain that dominance or consistency after 2018. He was still good in 2019-2020, but it fell off a bit already as he was losing titles to Reynor, and didn't win another world championship or GSL event. In order to stand out as the GOAT of all SC2 from 2010-2022, I think you need to be dominant in more than just 1 year. If he was as dominant as he was at his peak in 2018-2019, in like at least 1 other year, then I think he'd have a more solid argument. For me, the list goes like this (players are ordered within tiers by commas) S: Maru/Rogue S-: Innovation/Life A+: MVP/Dark, sOs/Stats, Taeja A: Serral/MC, Classic/MMA, Zest, Polt, soO, Nestea, Rain Phantom's picks are almost reasonable even if there's no way Maru could have been the best in HoTS or pre KeSpa fall LoTV. What is not reasonable is his borderline racist idea for which essentially koreans are superior and only the super op Zerg can make foreigners win, an idea we can laugh at after a chinese won a World Championship by defeating said Maru in his best mu, Terran vs Terran... I mean, it's a fact that foreigners were completely irrelevant when Kespa were still active. While I agree that Serral (and also Reynor) are incredible talents and would've been able to win tournaments in any era, it can't be denied that it would've been way harder for them to win in the Kespa era and also that they had a slightly easier time winning tournaments than the players of the other races. That HAS to be factored in.
I think you might have missed that, out of his 19 "Premier" tournaments Serral won only that were 2 EU locked and 7 overall without korean representation.
You are also missing that he won BlizzCon(a world championship) way before Katowice(he also won 2 GSL vs the World).
Serral also never lost consistency, out of 46 Premier tounaments from 2018 to 2023 he had a result worse than ro8 only 3 times while winning more than any other player had in the history of Sc2.
As I previously said, it's fine if you don't consider Serral to be the GOAT but he is a contender and there is no way he can be placed as low as you and others do.
Considering the nature of the tournaments he plays in he's almost guaranteed to be consistent though. He mostly plays tournaments with either only foreigners or tournaments where the groupstage has 1 other weak foreigner in it. Anyway, I disagree with the list of the previous poster, given his list of accomplishments you can't really argue Serral is not a top 4 player all time at this point. Where I disagree is that he's above Maru or Rogue Serral would still be the most consistent player if we only were to consider international events(no korean ones and no region locked ones) from 2018 to 2023. KeSpa and HoTS were the nail in the coffin of foreign sc2 which was indeed irrelevant at the time and one could wonder if Serral and Reynor would have developed into the players they are now under those circumstances, had the region lock never taken place. Once completely bloomed, tho, their skill couldn't have possibly be denied, no matter how competitively crowded the scene would have been. While it's true that Serral would have probably won less against a greater number of top koreans, the question you aren't asking yourself is if Maru would have won five GSL with KeSpa still around or even worse if Rogue would have won four considering he started doing so at the end of 2019 after never going past the ro8 for years. To my eyes, Maru's claim for GOAT only has the(major) flaw of never winning a global final(let alone winning offline tournaments outside of Asia) whereas Rogue's has many more. The clutchest(and one of the most abusive) player ever, I can't deny that Rogue is undoubtly a top as far as skill and a mindgames go, especially during his best periods towards the end of 2017 and 2021 respectively. However, do you think his sparkling 7-0 record in bo7 offline finals would have been intact if Code S were as competitive as it was during the KeSPa era? Don't you think that Rogue could have taken advantage of Zerg being very strong in the last years of LoTV while surpassing his limits in Code S? Moreover, when Rogue didn't outright win(and his victories do indeed possess the highest average quality as far as prestige goes), his placements were meager when compared to Maru's or Serral's; a player with such achievements deserves to be ranked highly in a GOAT list but could never be the one, imho. Yeah, for Rogue goes the same as for Serral that he didn't win during the Kespa era and mostly when Zerg was strong, that's why he's not the Goat imo despite having the most impressive resumee. Maru probably wouldn't have won 4 GSLs in a row if the scene was still just as competitive but he's the only one out of the 3 Goat contenders who actually won tournaments when all players were practicing 24/7 in teamhouses, which is the biggest argument in his favor. Maybe I overlooked something, but Maru won two Premier Tournaments before 2017 (a year he btw completly vanished and didn't even qualify for BlizzCon). So because he won two regional tournaments he is the Goat over people who won multiple world championships? When Rogue won WCS 2017 he nearly only beat koreans to do it, when Serral won 2018 he only crushed koreans, dropping three maps in total or something like that. Maru is for sure the best GSL player of all time, but GOAT? To maybe make a slightly obscure comparison: THW Kiel is without a doubt the best Handball club in the german Bundesliga of all time, a League that is generally considered to be the hardest one to win. But the record champion in Europe and probably still considered best of club in the world is still FC Barcelona, even though their home league is a joke. It is all about the international titles and there Maru just falls flat, wouldn't probably even be considered Top 10.
Yeah that noob Maru was only able to win regional tournaments in HotS, such a shame. Those wins don't count as much because he didn't face the foreign gods at that time like Lilbow and LiquidBunny.
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On March 04 2023 05:33 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 02:16 Balnazza wrote:On March 03 2023 09:46 Charoisaur wrote:On March 03 2023 00:18 Xain0n wrote:On March 02 2023 22:17 Charoisaur wrote:On March 02 2023 21:15 Xain0n wrote:On March 02 2023 18:49 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On March 02 2023 16:15 BelethielQT wrote:On March 02 2023 11:11 [Phantom] wrote:
I think we can't say for sure until we see how many korean pros keep playing.
Though I don't think you can claim there is a GOAT.
Imo, you can claim the following:
Best player in WoL: Mvp
Best player in HotS: Life Maru? sOs? Innovation?
Best player in Lotv from 2015 to 2016 (kespa fall) This one is tricky, but maybe Maru/Rain/Innovation
Best player in Lotv post 2016-2021, The "zerg era". This era is tainted by the destruction of the korean scene. Make no mistake. It is nocoincidence that foreigner players weren't able to truly be competitive (except stephano sometimes) with koreans until KeSPA died, and anyone saying otherwise is either cluelessly biased or malicious in their argument. In this Period Serral has a case of being the best player, but Maru also has a case as well, and Rogue, which isn't a fan favorite but boy is he good.
As for overall best player, it's impossible to say. It's definitely not serral, that's for sure. He only got there when Korean scene exploded and Zerg became OP (and yes, it is also not a coincidence that the only foreigners to ever truly compete vs Koreans are zerg).
If I had to say someone it would have to be Maru for being consistently good since 2010. No other player comes close. This guy is such a troll Are you talking about Phantom? His picks are all super reasonable, and the same ones I would say. Personally I don't understand people saying Serral is the GOAT. Based on titles, most of his wins are EU tournaments with little to no KR talent there. Sure he's won like a GSL vs the World, and an IEM Katowice, but there are many other players who have also won a world championship (Katowice or Blizzcon/WCS), and that alone doesn't make them the best. Do I think that he was the GOAT in skill at a certain point of time? Yeah, I do think he was the best player when he won Katowice. But he didn't maintain that dominance or consistency after 2018. He was still good in 2019-2020, but it fell off a bit already as he was losing titles to Reynor, and didn't win another world championship or GSL event. In order to stand out as the GOAT of all SC2 from 2010-2022, I think you need to be dominant in more than just 1 year. If he was as dominant as he was at his peak in 2018-2019, in like at least 1 other year, then I think he'd have a more solid argument. For me, the list goes like this (players are ordered within tiers by commas) S: Maru/Rogue S-: Innovation/Life A+: MVP/Dark, sOs/Stats, Taeja A: Serral/MC, Classic/MMA, Zest, Polt, soO, Nestea, Rain Phantom's picks are almost reasonable even if there's no way Maru could have been the best in HoTS or pre KeSpa fall LoTV. What is not reasonable is his borderline racist idea for which essentially koreans are superior and only the super op Zerg can make foreigners win, an idea we can laugh at after a chinese won a World Championship by defeating said Maru in his best mu, Terran vs Terran... I mean, it's a fact that foreigners were completely irrelevant when Kespa were still active. While I agree that Serral (and also Reynor) are incredible talents and would've been able to win tournaments in any era, it can't be denied that it would've been way harder for them to win in the Kespa era and also that they had a slightly easier time winning tournaments than the players of the other races. That HAS to be factored in.
I think you might have missed that, out of his 19 "Premier" tournaments Serral won only that were 2 EU locked and 7 overall without korean representation.
You are also missing that he won BlizzCon(a world championship) way before Katowice(he also won 2 GSL vs the World).
Serral also never lost consistency, out of 46 Premier tounaments from 2018 to 2023 he had a result worse than ro8 only 3 times while winning more than any other player had in the history of Sc2.
As I previously said, it's fine if you don't consider Serral to be the GOAT but he is a contender and there is no way he can be placed as low as you and others do.
Considering the nature of the tournaments he plays in he's almost guaranteed to be consistent though. He mostly plays tournaments with either only foreigners or tournaments where the groupstage has 1 other weak foreigner in it. Anyway, I disagree with the list of the previous poster, given his list of accomplishments you can't really argue Serral is not a top 4 player all time at this point. Where I disagree is that he's above Maru or Rogue Serral would still be the most consistent player if we only were to consider international events(no korean ones and no region locked ones) from 2018 to 2023. KeSpa and HoTS were the nail in the coffin of foreign sc2 which was indeed irrelevant at the time and one could wonder if Serral and Reynor would have developed into the players they are now under those circumstances, had the region lock never taken place. Once completely bloomed, tho, their skill couldn't have possibly be denied, no matter how competitively crowded the scene would have been. While it's true that Serral would have probably won less against a greater number of top koreans, the question you aren't asking yourself is if Maru would have won five GSL with KeSpa still around or even worse if Rogue would have won four considering he started doing so at the end of 2019 after never going past the ro8 for years. To my eyes, Maru's claim for GOAT only has the(major) flaw of never winning a global final(let alone winning offline tournaments outside of Asia) whereas Rogue's has many more. The clutchest(and one of the most abusive) player ever, I can't deny that Rogue is undoubtly a top as far as skill and a mindgames go, especially during his best periods towards the end of 2017 and 2021 respectively. However, do you think his sparkling 7-0 record in bo7 offline finals would have been intact if Code S were as competitive as it was during the KeSPa era? Don't you think that Rogue could have taken advantage of Zerg being very strong in the last years of LoTV while surpassing his limits in Code S? Moreover, when Rogue didn't outright win(and his victories do indeed possess the highest average quality as far as prestige goes), his placements were meager when compared to Maru's or Serral's; a player with such achievements deserves to be ranked highly in a GOAT list but could never be the one, imho. Yeah, for Rogue goes the same as for Serral that he didn't win during the Kespa era and mostly when Zerg was strong, that's why he's not the Goat imo despite having the most impressive resumee. Maru probably wouldn't have won 4 GSLs in a row if the scene was still just as competitive but he's the only one out of the 3 Goat contenders who actually won tournaments when all players were practicing 24/7 in teamhouses, which is the biggest argument in his favor. Maybe I overlooked something, but Maru won two Premier Tournaments before 2017 (a year he btw completly vanished and didn't even qualify for BlizzCon). So because he won two regional tournaments he is the Goat over people who won multiple world championships? When Rogue won WCS 2017 he nearly only beat koreans to do it, when Serral won 2018 he only crushed koreans, dropping three maps in total or something like that. Maru is for sure the best GSL player of all time, but GOAT? To maybe make a slightly obscure comparison: THW Kiel is without a doubt the best Handball club in the german Bundesliga of all time, a League that is generally considered to be the hardest one to win. But the record champion in Europe and probably still considered best of club in the world is still FC Barcelona, even though their home league is a joke. It is all about the international titles and there Maru just falls flat, wouldn't probably even be considered Top 10. Yeah that noob Maru was only able to win regional tournaments in HotS, such a shame. Those wins don't count as much because he didn't face the foreign gods at that time like Lilbow and LiquidBunny.
Not what I said at all, but sure.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
It's Maru, then Rogue, then Mvp and then Reynor, then Serral. And it would have been Life if he didn't get yeeted.
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Mexico2170 Posts
On March 04 2023 02:54 KalWarkov wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 02:00 SHODAN wrote:
Serral never won a GSL and Maru never won a Blizzcon. I guess one of those needed to happen during the most competitive era of SC2 in order to bring the GOAT debate to a conclusion. Maru, Rogue and Serral will go on being more or less equal rivals and all have a strong claim to being the greatest SC2 player. I personally give it to Maru because he achieved his success with terran, during patches that were unfavorable, whereas Rogue and Serral never really had to worry about balance. I also think his proleague performances, the prestige of the G5L trophy, and the sheer longevity of Maru in SC2 counts for a lot. there is a huge difference. Maru TRIED to win blizzcon/WC every - single - year. Serral never TRIED to win GSL. he went to GSL vs the world once and WON in his first try beating every top korean player. if serral went to korea in 2018 and played gsl, there is no way he wouldn't have won at least 1, if not 2. Maru's longeviety is overrated. he didn't win a whole lot before 2017. he was always considered a great talent, but he didn't really win a lot and consistantly. GSL happens 3 times a year, the status of a GSL win is absolutely overrated. it's nowhere near as hard to win a gsl compared to an international Lan event.
If its not as hard to win a GSL why did reynor end up last in his group? Hell, he literally had the worst map score that season of GSL I think, so literal last place.
When has Reynor or any player of that caliber ended last in the first round of an international tournament? Never. That never happens and never will, because those tournaments are easier
If GSL is so easy why is there only 3 players, in 13 years, that have more than 3 titles?
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On March 04 2023 02:54 KalWarkov wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 02:00 SHODAN wrote:
Serral never won a GSL and Maru never won a Blizzcon. I guess one of those needed to happen during the most competitive era of SC2 in order to bring the GOAT debate to a conclusion. Maru, Rogue and Serral will go on being more or less equal rivals and all have a strong claim to being the greatest SC2 player. I personally give it to Maru because he achieved his success with terran, during patches that were unfavorable, whereas Rogue and Serral never really had to worry about balance. I also think his proleague performances, the prestige of the G5L trophy, and the sheer longevity of Maru in SC2 counts for a lot. there is a huge difference. Maru TRIED to win blizzcon/WC every - single - year. Serral never TRIED to win GSL. he went to GSL vs the world once and WON in his first try beating every top korean player. if serral went to korea in 2018 and played gsl, there is no way he wouldn't have won at least 1, if not 2. Maru's longeviety is overrated. he didn't win a whole lot before 2017. he was always considered a great talent, but he didn't really win a lot and consistantly. GSL happens 3 times a year, the status of a GSL win is absolutely overrated. it's nowhere near as hard to win a gsl compared to an international Lan event.
Maru's longeviety is highly rated and justified. it's not merely a question of how many years he's been around. what matters to me is that he's been a TOP TALENT for almost all that time. Maru has been the most exciting micro user since WoL. the only player who could rival his micro in early SC2 was Life. he's been an exceptional talent in pretty much every era of SC2 except for early WoL (2010-2011). Maru's micro was quite simply mind-blowing in 2012. nobody had ever seen skills like that insane hold vs Effort on Entombed Valley. I dunno if you watched streams back in 2012, but every KR terran dreaded him on ladder. I watched GSL terrans breath a weary sigh when they got matched against Maru because they knew they were gonna get absolutely destroyed. I watched him beat GuMiho on stream 7 games in a row using the same build: gas first 1-1-1 marine / hellion drop. I think it was called the Slayers build back then. anyway, point is, Maru was exceptional long before Serral. his micro mechanics were on a level of mastery shared only by Life.
I honestly couldn't care less how much Maru won before 2017. I don't have memories of Serral's 1st place finishes because Serral is boring to watch. if I remember Serral, it's usually because his opponent put on a good show (e.g. TY vs Serral at HSC XIX). Maru, on other hand, is the THRILLER. he took his 1st places with panache. this is what matters to me as an enjoyer of pro sc2. Serral was too boring to go to Korea and destroy esports’ oldest dynasty. that is something I would have loved to watch, but Serral was simply too boring. can you imagine Serral holding a can of HOTSIX? no, because Serral is more of tomato juice kind of guy. no vodka... just lukewarm tomato juice, no ice. Serral didn't even try to win GSL... and you think that adds more weight to your claim that he is the GOAT? ... how? "oh, if Serral went to Korea in 2018, he would have won this, he would have won that!" but he didn't go to Korea, did he? so it really means fuck all what he might have done in GSL, doesn't it? Maru actually went to international events, showed awesome games and earned good results.
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On March 04 2023 06:46 [Phantom] wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2023 02:54 KalWarkov wrote:On March 04 2023 02:00 SHODAN wrote:
Serral never won a GSL and Maru never won a Blizzcon. I guess one of those needed to happen during the most competitive era of SC2 in order to bring the GOAT debate to a conclusion. Maru, Rogue and Serral will go on being more or less equal rivals and all have a strong claim to being the greatest SC2 player. I personally give it to Maru because he achieved his success with terran, during patches that were unfavorable, whereas Rogue and Serral never really had to worry about balance. I also think his proleague performances, the prestige of the G5L trophy, and the sheer longevity of Maru in SC2 counts for a lot. there is a huge difference. Maru TRIED to win blizzcon/WC every - single - year. Serral never TRIED to win GSL. he went to GSL vs the world once and WON in his first try beating every top korean player. if serral went to korea in 2018 and played gsl, there is no way he wouldn't have won at least 1, if not 2. Maru's longeviety is overrated. he didn't win a whole lot before 2017. he was always considered a great talent, but he didn't really win a lot and consistantly. GSL happens 3 times a year, the status of a GSL win is absolutely overrated. it's nowhere near as hard to win a gsl compared to an international Lan event. If its not as hard to win a GSL why did reynor end up last in his group? Hell, he literally had the worst map score that season of GSL I think, so literal last place. When has Reynor or any player of that caliber ended last in the first round of an international tournament? Never. That never happens and never will, because those tournaments are easier If GSL is so easy why is there only 3 players, in 13 years, that have more than 3 titles?
Rogue and innovation did lose in group stages in ur easier tournaments
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The reality is SC2 doesn't have a consensus GOAT like Flash in SC1 did. It's okay, not every sport has one.
Three biggest candidates would be Maru, Serral and Rogue. You can make your argument for any of them and we can agree to disagree.
There seems to be some controversies around Serral, but I do think his last 5 years run from 2018-2023 was legendary and could rival any other player's prime years. You can argue that Serral never played in GSL, but I will counter that Serral have met plenty of top Korean players in international tournaments and he maintains a winning record against almost every single one of them in last 5 years. Since 2018, Serral has a head to head record of:
8-3 Maru, 11-3 Innovation, 7-5 ByuN, 6-0 TY, 7-3 Stats, 3-1 herO, 9-3 Zest, 5-1 Classic, 13-3 Trap, 2-1 Ragnarok, 5-3 Dark, 6-6 Rogue, 6-1 soO, 7-2 Solar
The list goes on, that's include all races so you can't use balance as an excuse. His dominance against peers is almost unprecedented. I don't think you can make the same list for any other player in the history.
Also just by eye test, I do think that Serral displays the highest level of Zerg play on almost every front that I've ever seem, and I've been watching from WoL, and have seen the entire career of other great Zerg players like Nestea, DRG, Life, Soulkey, soO, Rogue, etc. Every time I watch Serral play it still blows my mind and makes me think "man he's just better than any other Zergs in history".
It's okay that you have Maru or Rogue ahead of him in GOAT debate, honestly even after the glowing praise I just gave to Serral I might still give the edge to Maru in this discussion, but putting Serral anywhere lower than top 3 is hilarious and wrong.
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Serral is the GOAT of SC2.
Most of the SC2 pros will probably retire this year, including Serral, so there can be no new GOAT.
But if Serral decides to play Stormgate I think he will be the GOAT there as well.
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EPT
