How do we measure GOATs without Korean SC2? - Page 8
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BelethielQT
90 Posts
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10306 Posts
On March 05 2023 15:19 Monochromatic wrote: Early SC2 was a different beast. Strategies came and went incredibly quickly, and with them certain players. It was not uncommon for someone to dominate and then suddenly vanish as the meta evolved. Inca made the GSL finals with dark templars, a blue flame hellion opening just straight up won a tournament, and patches changed things incredibly quickly. During this time it was incredibly rare to be consistent. MVP was the only exception. There was a GomTvT era, and MVP's rise came after it. In fact, during his period of domination, Terran would be nerfed regularly. He was significantly ahead of other top Terrans, like MMA or Bomber. His greatest strength is his ability to innovate and execute: he always found a way to victory. This is something that is incredibly overlooked in the current game, since everything is figured out. MVP basically invented Terran. He used everything and anything and somehow he was able to win. If you combined SoS and Rogue, MVP would be the result. I will always remember his GSL final against Squirtle as one of the best Starcraft matches. He built battlecruisers in g5 and was going to win with them until an archon toilet turned the tides. At that time battlecruisers were an awful unit - TotalBiscuit had a series going where he would try to win them because they were so terribly bad. I think the modern equivalent would be using HTs normal attack to try to kill someone - it's such a dumb idea that you wouldn't even try. But MVP not only made it work, he used a never before seen build in a GSL final. His career was cut short due to a wrist injury. Saying he had a lack of effort or will is just ignorant. He won WCS EU despite this injury - by completely remaking his playstyle to be less micro intensive. He also greatly reduced his practice schedule, meaning that for MVP playing below standard was still enough to win a premier tournament during a period where competition was at its peak. MVP is underrated in the GOAT discussion. GOAT isn't a question of most tournament wins or the most prize money. It's rather a question of who's greatest. MVP is undisputedly the king of wings, while no one else is considered the king of their era. His star may have shined briefly, but it was brighter than any other. That's definitely true that it was a very different era, and if you're measuring GOAT in terms of what is impressive, then MVP does show brilliance relative to the competition in his era. But I disagree with a few things. BCs were never bad, and it's not like TotalBiscuit was ever seen as someone good at the game or having a good understanding of it. BCs were the strongest army you can make in the game if you were able to mass them. If you have enough BCs you can A click and destroy everything and they can't keep kiting you forever. Also, a few supporting Ravens with PDD, and they have no chance. It's true that Terran got some nerfs, but I also think they were still the strongest in the game even despite the BL/Infestor strength towards the end of WoL. Keep in mind that players didn't realize that Raven/PDD was OP until like the 2nd half of HotS, where it then started getting nerfed and nerfed and then Seeker Missile was finally completely removed and replaced with an even weaker missile that still gave a tiny bit of AOE damage, but that was still OP and nerfed and then removed, and then they finally removed PDD too because a PDD lasting 20 seconds was still OP, and even all the way to LotV 2022 apparently Raven is too strong when massed and still getting nerfed. But the Raven had PDD all the way since the beginning of WoL, they had the version of PDD that lasted like 2 minutes, auto turrets that lasted minutes, etc. They had BC+Raven+Viking for all of WoL, the strongest composition in the game. EMP your stacked BCs once and Protoss has no answer. Spread out your units vs Infestors and Zerg has no answer vs PDD. You could always float a building into the corner of the map and at worst, force a draw. There is no way for a Protoss or Zerg air army to beat Terran air because PDD + Yamato was stupid as hell and maps had so much air space. So even if MVP had to change from a micro intensive to less APM intensive style, I don't think that means he was handicapping himself. He was playing mech which was simply actually just better than bio in TvZ and TvT in WoL. You had Xel'Naga Towers at the center of maps, and maps were super easily walled off at the middle with just 4-5 PFs sometimes. Mech was actually OP as hell. MVP going mass BCs on Metalopolis - one of the most OP maps for Terran Mech because of the Watch Towers and 2 narrow routes that you can wall off with 4 PFs total - is not really innovative or creative. The mains were also close by air, and there was a huge amount of dead air space around bases, making mass BC/air even more broken on that map. If anything, MVP throwing that game as hard as he did when all he had to do was split slightly and A click is pretty questionable GOAT-wise. I do remember WoL being very exciting to watch at the time; there were big plays, games could swing back and forth, and often there was action all over - especially on big maps like Tal'Darim where you could spread many bases out. But looking back, a lot of these games people just really didn't know how to play the game very well. A lot of those big plays were possible because players weren't good enough to prepare, anticipate, or react to them properly. I remember TvT was really exciting at the time when players like MKP, and all the Slayers Terrans like MMA, Ryung, and heck even Ganzi, were able to put up close games with or win matches vs MVP. And sometimes big plays basically were just doing a big doom drop and the other player not having any vision or awareness of it happening, and then they lose a base trade. All that said, yeah it is still impressive that MVP showed dominance where his competitors couldn't. And yeah, there were more players at the time, so I guess winning a few titles is harder than a scene with less players. But since he only really was dominant in 2011 and 2012 and went down a notch in 2013, I don't count it as much as being dominant for 5-6 years like Maru/Rogue/Serral. MVP appeared especially dominant because the game was so young, so when he was strong for 2 years it seemed like such a long time. As for me not giving him much benefit of the doubt when it comes to wrist issues - I don't see how that's ignorant at all. If a player gets an injury and stops being able to compete, I can't just assume that they would have kept playing well for another year or two even if they tried. They have to try and get results. Maybe MVP could have played better or continued to do as well as he did in 2013 if he didn't have a wrist injury and kept playing, but who knows. Also, it's not like MVP is the only pro who is dealing with wrist issues. Ultimately wrist issues and your health and how you adjust your mechanics and playstyle in a way that's best for you, are a player's responsibility. If you overexert yourself, maybe you can get a short term advantage but you'll have problems longterm. I just can't give much points to MVP even if we assume that MVP would have performed better if he stuck with a higher micro style, and that he had to put extra effort to switch playstyles to keep up with competition. Effort doesn't mean much, results and achievements do. Ultimately, i never actually felt that MVP was that much more dominant than his peers in WoL. Nestea matched his 3 GSL titles, and MC won 2 GSLs, an IEM World Championship, and a WCS EU. MVP got 3 GSL titles, a WCS EU, and an MLG Anaheim (gosh that tourny had so many memorable moments). I'm not counting MVP's GSL vs the World win since it was a 16 man invitational where half were foreigners, and the 8 KRs that were picked were not even picked purely based on skill/results but who they wanted to see play. I feel like MVP was only seen as dominant if you agree that he was a "4 time GSL winner" as he was often called, and you are of the opinion that the 16 man GSL invitational should be valued as anything close to a normal GSL and you see him as having 4 GSLs. To me, MVP is only a 3 time GSL winner like Nestea, and I think that Terran was the strongest race throughout WoL, especially thanks to maps. But hey, maybe that's just me being a Nestea fanboy. | ||
Balnazza
Germany1098 Posts
On March 05 2023 17:03 Charoisaur wrote: So people's opinion about who's the Goat is irrelevant because it's just based on popularity? Based on that assumption every Goat debate is completely pointless so why are you even here? Your takes about the scene back then are so wrong, just admit you weren't around and have no idea what you're talking about. Maru was one out of 4 people who won 2 Starleagues during the Kespa era (along with Zest, Inno and Classic) and as already mentioned arguably the best Proleague player which was the most important tournament for koreans back then. That already puts him in the top 5 of players in the most competitive era of sc2 (2013-2016). "Maru is arguebly the best Proleague player"...he is ninth place. He is neither the best Ace player, nor has he the highest winrate, most games or most wins. So whoever argues that is purely going on "Maru is my favorite player", nothing more. You know what though? I apologize for the Top 10 thing. Kinda forgot about the WCS Season 2 that wasn't a GSL but clearly was, so Maru pre-2018 being in the Top 10 still feels wrong to me, but I can see the argument for it. But again: He wasn't the most dominant in the "most competitive era", nor was he the most dominant afterwards. And he still hasn't won the World Championship. So he is three-times not the best and that in your and JJs eyes makes him the best ever? What is he, the Kinda Greatest of All Time? KGOAT really has a nice ring to it... Ah, but since you (and JJ...again) really are that interested: I started following SC2 a bit later, like...one year after release I think? But I was never really that interested in the korean scene except Proleague. Just didn't care much for it and probably will never be a fan of this weird korean-elitism. I dropped out after Snute retired, but came back as a casual viewer through Serrals world championship, so I missed like...2018? Feel free to use any of that as ammunition to not argue the point if you want *shrug* | ||
Charoisaur
Germany15878 Posts
But I was never really that interested in the korean scene except Proleague. Yeah I can tell that. But why do you act knowledgeable about a subject you know nothing about? You just look up some random statistic on liquipedia and judge from that without any idea about the context of it | ||
Balnazza
Germany1098 Posts
On March 05 2023 22:03 Charoisaur wrote: Yeah I can tell that. But why do you act knowledgeable about a subject you know nothing about? You just look up some random statistic on liquipedia and judge from that without any idea about the context of it Okay, since apparently your feelings are stronger than statistics: sOs Proleague stats: 92W - 47L, 66% Winrate, 2-5 Aces herO Proleague stats: 91W - 59L, 61% Winrate, 13-11 Aces Rain PL stats: 71W - 41L, 63% Winrate, 14-8 Aces Maru PL stats: 57W - 35L, 62% Winrate, 7-5 Aces These are the Top 2, the 5th best player and Marus as 9th. Please explain to me how he can be, just compared to the other three, be "the best Proleague player" when he is equal or worse in two categories to each of them? If you want to decide the GOAT by who is your favorite player, that is fine. But please don't give me that "I was around"-crap if you can't back it up with anything. Otherwise I seriously will throw in Snute. And you still haven't helped me with the problem, how someone who was never on top in any era can be the best of all time. That is not how GOATing works. Can you perhaps focus on that instead of trying to work around stats and statistics? | ||
Charoisaur
Germany15878 Posts
On March 05 2023 23:06 Balnazza wrote: Okay, since apparently your feelings are stronger than statistics: sOs Proleague stats: 92W - 47L, 66% Winrate, 2-5 Aces herO Proleague stats: 91W - 59L, 61% Winrate, 13-11 Aces Rain PL stats: 71W - 41L, 63% Winrate, 14-8 Aces Maru PL stats: 57W - 35L, 62% Winrate, 7-5 Aces These are the Top 2, the 5th best player and Marus as 9th. Please explain to me how he can be, just compared to the other three, be "the best Proleague player" when he is equal or worse in two categories to each of them? If you want to decide the GOAT by who is your favorite player, that is fine. But please don't give me that "I was around"-crap if you can't back it up with anything. Otherwise I seriously will throw in Snute. And you still haven't helped me with the problem, how someone who was never on top in any era can be the best of all time. That is not how GOATing works. Can you perhaps focus on that instead of trying to work around stats and statistics? That's what I mean by looking up some random statistic. If you were around you'd know that the statistics you posted are flawed because the liquipedia site for some reason only considered regular season matches and not playoff matches and Maru always performed extremely well in playoffs. Further, total number of wins isn't a meaningful statistic because it just lets the players who played in all proleague season be at the top regardless of their winrate (Maru has fewer matches played because he was at Prime in 2013 who weren't playing in Proleague back then). I don't have the complete Proleague statistics, however Maru would surely be competing for best winrate if you would include playoffs. However, his biggest claim for the title of best Proleague player is that he had by far the best single Proleague season out of all players with a Flash-like 22-4 record in 2016 carrying Jin Air to the title. This is all knowledge you would have if you actually followed the scene back then but for some reason you are convinced that by looking up one liquipedia statistic (which turned out to be a flawed one) you have more knowledge than anyone who was actually around back then and telling you how it is. Also, no Maru wasn't the best during the Kespa era, but he was surely top 5. And he surely was on top when he won 4 GSLs in a row or when he won 4 tournaments at the end of 2021 / beginning of 2022. If that doesn't count as "being on top" Serral and Rogue have never been on top either. | ||
JJH777
United States4378 Posts
On March 05 2023 23:06 Balnazza wrote: Okay, since apparently your feelings are stronger than statistics: sOs Proleague stats: 92W - 47L, 66% Winrate, 2-5 Aces herO Proleague stats: 91W - 59L, 61% Winrate, 13-11 Aces Rain PL stats: 71W - 41L, 63% Winrate, 14-8 Aces Maru PL stats: 57W - 35L, 62% Winrate, 7-5 Aces These are the Top 2, the 5th best player and Marus as 9th. Please explain to me how he can be, just compared to the other three, be "the best Proleague player" when he is equal or worse in two categories to each of them? If you want to decide the GOAT by who is your favorite player, that is fine. But please don't give me that "I was around"-crap if you can't back it up with anything. Otherwise I seriously will throw in Snute. And you still haven't helped me with the problem, how someone who was never on top in any era can be the best of all time. That is not how GOATing works. Can you perhaps focus on that instead of trying to work around stats and statistics? Maybe when judging someone it would be helpful to actually get correct stats? No idea where you got those numbers but Maru was 79-40 throughout all of proleague. Way different than what you listed here. I'm not going to go through every player but for comparison to your lists top player sOs was 66-41 through the 2014-2015-2016 seasons. As you can see not particularly close at all for the seasons they both played in. Including 2012-2013 doesn't change Maru's number since he didn't play in it and increases sOs to 98-56. Maru has less total wins which makes sense considering he missed an entire season due to being esf at the time but still has a higher winrate. | ||
Balnazza
Germany1098 Posts
On March 05 2023 23:49 Charoisaur wrote: Also, no Maru wasn't the best during the Kespa era, but he was surely top 5. And he surely was on top when he won 4 GSLs in a row or when he won 4 tournaments at the end of 2021 / beginning of 2022. If that doesn't count as "being on top" Serral and Rogue have never been on top either. I said Maru was never on top of an era. And no, he wasn't even on top of 2018, which clearly belongs to Serral. A World Championships, beating only koreans, just wins out against three GSLs. And yes, my stats are a bit flawed, since Liquipedias overview for PL apparently doesn't include the last season. Yet...Maru not on top. So of course to a weaker extend, but the point still stands. It really is just...easy? Big players win big titles and the biggest player wins the biggest title - which Maru has failed to do. He also never dominated the scene convincingly. He is also not the best performing player in the most important Teamleague. So I really don't see what exactly would put Maru on top above everybody else. | ||
Blargh
United States2101 Posts
On March 05 2023 23:06 Balnazza wrote: Okay, since apparently your feelings are stronger than statistics: sOs Proleague stats: 92W - 47L, 66% Winrate, 2-5 Aces herO Proleague stats: 91W - 59L, 61% Winrate, 13-11 Aces Rain PL stats: 71W - 41L, 63% Winrate, 14-8 Aces Maru PL stats: 57W - 35L, 62% Winrate, 7-5 Aces These are the Top 2, the 5th best player and Marus as 9th. Please explain to me how he can be, just compared to the other three, be "the best Proleague player" when he is equal or worse in two categories to each of them? If you want to decide the GOAT by who is your favorite player, that is fine. But please don't give me that "I was around"-crap if you can't back it up with anything. Otherwise I seriously will throw in Snute. And you still haven't helped me with the problem, how someone who was never on top in any era can be the best of all time. That is not how GOATing works. Can you perhaps focus on that instead of trying to work around stats and statistics? I'd weigh longevity over peaks personally, but we still need to weigh competitive eras. 2012-16 was probably the most competitive era, as compared to... 2018-Present. It is a bit unfair that we had/have a pandemic, but the scene already felt in decline before that. It's worth noting that Serral DID play before 2015. I distinctly remember him playing against some of the "foreigner koreans". He just wasn't very good back then. So do we weigh how POORLY someone was in an era? Does that get taken into account? Regardless, I think people need to consider that the 2012-16 era was by far the most competitive, and so even just placing top 16 in a GSL was better than any WCS EU/AM 1st. I think one year in 2014 or 2015, the WCS finals was actually all koreans, because Koreans went to EU and AM WCS on foreign teams and dominated. It's not really fair to say, "Well there weren't any players who were crushing all the competition all the time in 2012-2016, so clearly no GOAT from that era". The closest person would probably be sOs or If you asked me, the most important WCS/Annual finals were 2012-2016's, and sOs happens to have two from that era, which just seems way better than Serral's WCS & IEM. Note, sOs also won the "IEM world championship" in 2014. That was the nutty 100k winner-takes-all tournament! Or instead, you can say that Rogue has won 1 WCS finals, and 2 IEM world champs, and thus is better than Serral! I think part of this dumb debate comes down to what you care about most. Do you care how dominant they are, despite the competition being less relevant? Do you care about total prize money? Do you care about longevity? Ultimately, it's a pointless debate, especially since everyone disagrees on what is most valuable (do you remember all the debates about GSL vs weekend tournaments??). | ||
necrosexy
451 Posts
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JJH777
United States4378 Posts
On March 06 2023 02:07 Balnazza wrote: I said Maru was never on top of an era. And no, he wasn't even on top of 2018, which clearly belongs to Serral. A World Championships, beating only koreans, just wins out against three GSLs. And yes, my stats are a bit flawed, since Liquipedias overview for PL apparently doesn't include the last season. Yet...Maru not on top. So of course to a weaker extend, but the point still stands. It really is just...easy? Big players win big titles and the biggest player wins the biggest title - which Maru has failed to do. He also never dominated the scene convincingly. He is also not the best performing player in the most important Teamleague. So I really don't see what exactly would put Maru on top above everybody else. Maru had both the best record in an individual season and the highest overall percentage winrate when all seasons are added up... How is that not the top player? GSL/OSL/SSL are all historically just as hard or harder than world championships. Lately that's changed but his 2013 OSL was 100% a harder path than the 2013 world championship. 2/3 of the consensus goat candidates before 2018 did not have a modern world championship win. | ||
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Poopi
France12761 Posts
On March 06 2023 02:07 Balnazza wrote: I said Maru was never on top of an era. And no, he wasn't even on top of 2018, which clearly belongs to Serral. A World Championships, beating only koreans, just wins out against three GSLs. And yes, my stats are a bit flawed, since Liquipedias overview for PL apparently doesn't include the last season. Yet...Maru not on top. So of course to a weaker extend, but the point still stands. It really is just...easy? Big players win big titles and the biggest player wins the biggest title - which Maru has failed to do. He also never dominated the scene convincingly. He is also not the best performing player in the most important Teamleague. So I really don't see what exactly would put Maru on top above everybody else. Winning 3 Code S in a row in 2018 (and then a fourth one in 2019) is the best achievement that ever happened in Starcraft 2 lol. Winning a BlizzCon is nice and cool, but plenty of people could and did that. Winning that many GSLs in a row, at a time that was still competitive (2022 is a bit less competitive but the world champion Reynor still got last in his group, which shows how incredibly cutthroat GSL can be), is the most dominant feat any player has ever done. If you add on top of that his great OSL/SSL/proleague record from before, you could see how he was the obvious GOAT until Rogue amassed several GSL wins as well as his World Championship titles, albeit in a very very zerg favored era. I mean it is kind of obvious that Rogue and Maru are #1a and #1b GOAT of Starcraft 2, depending how much weight you put on balance and importance of being dominant in kespa era (weak points of Rogue). It is not surprising after almost a decade of foreigners being dominated by KR players that the EU / foreign scene wants Serral, the first one to be truly competitive with KR players, to be the GOAT though. Does not mean it is the truth, but it's probably what the casters think, which influence their casual audience who did not follow GSL/sc2 properly for all these years. Also, if you wanna check how World Championship are worth compared to GSL, just look at sOs career. He won 2 World Championships, yet since he could not win a single GSL (afaik, his best result was his loss to INno in 2017), nobody even considers him the GOAT of protoss compared to Zest or Stats. Another great examples of this would be TY and ByuN, who respectively won IEM Katowice and BlizzCon, and even have Code S titles to their name. Yet, nobody in their right mind would put them ahead of Maru or INnoVation as terrans, despite the lack of WC. After seeing this, why would Serral with 1 BlizzCon and 1 Katowice during super zerg favored and a bit less competitive era (for 2022), with a bunch of EU titles from back when Has or MaNa made it to the finals and Clem / Reynor were too young to compete, as well as some HSC or else titles, would be a contender? The fact that Maru did not win a World Championship yet, is more about him vs Rogue. I can't say: "yes it is obvious Maru is the GOAT compared to Rogue", it really depends on how you view things. Neither could I say "it is obvious Rogue is GOAT compared to Maru". But Serral is not even in the discussion for top 3, that is INno spot; he is probably in the top 5 though. | ||
Charoisaur
Germany15878 Posts
On March 06 2023 02:07 Balnazza wrote: I said Maru was never on top of an era. And no, he wasn't even on top of 2018, which clearly belongs to Serral. A World Championships, beating only koreans, just wins out against three GSLs. And yes, my stats are a bit flawed, since Liquipedias overview for PL apparently doesn't include the last season. Yet...Maru not on top. So of course to a weaker extend, but the point still stands. It really is just...easy? Big players win big titles and the biggest player wins the biggest title - which Maru has failed to do. He also never dominated the scene convincingly. He is also not the best performing player in the most important Teamleague. So I really don't see what exactly would put Maru on top above everybody else. The arguments have been presented many times, I won't repeat it again. At the end of the day it's obvious there's no clear Goat as each of the contenders have massive asterisks to their achievements. If you think someone can't be the Goat if he hasn't won a world championship that's fair, but it's just as fair to think someone can't be the Goat if he never won a GSL or only started winning once teamhouses disbanded and the scene became way less professional and competitive. The only blatantly untrue statement in this thread was that there is a "consensus" one player is the Goat when there's clearly not. | ||
Balnazza
Germany1098 Posts
On March 06 2023 02:50 Charoisaur wrote: The only blatantly untrue statement in this thread was that there is a "consensus" one player is the Goat when there's clearly not. I definetly can agree on that. Though I guess most people have "their" clear GOAT, but that is of course fine. @Poopi: Yeah...no. Winning GSL is of course hard, but again, the biggest players win the biggest titles. And the biggest thing to win is the WCS/Blizzcon/EPT Tour Championship. I honestly can't see how you would not consider the one player that won not only the most Premier tournaments by far, but is now also the best performing at the World Championships (though by a margin that is really ignorable) atleast in the Top 3 for the discussion. That is jus blatant korean bias tbh | ||
Pandain
United States12985 Posts
You can debate the ratios (e.g. two GSLs vs one world championship) but anyone who tries to make a one to one comparison or even GSL more important is just plain out wrong. No player would think that. Last point: everyone loves Mvp but he was never as dominant as people who came after (2013 inno, 2018 maru/serral, etc.). I'm not even really sure he was ever "dominant" - he was just the best player but not in a overpowering way. Also he played in a time when we literally had 9-10 GSLs a year. If that had kept up Maru would have like 20 GSLs by now, if not more. And in those days there were weekend tournaments literally every week. You can't just abstractly point to his tournament wins without that huge caveat. | ||
The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
That is also why proleague gets a lot of focus from some posters here, because it was the tournament where the best of the best players competed weekly against each other with teams putting a lot of focus on the performance in it. | ||
Pandain
United States12985 Posts
On March 06 2023 05:12 The_Red_Viper wrote: It doesn't matter what players think. They more than anything care about making a living, and yeah a world championship pays out more than a gsl and always has (i think). The argument is about the competitive level of the tournaments, and for that during starcraft 2's peak it make sense to think that a starleague (so gsl, osl, ssl) was oftentimes if not always more difficult to win than a world championship because it featured the stronger playerbase. That isn't really true anymore per se, but it most likely was during the height of kespa. That is also why proleague gets a lot of focus from some posters here, because it was the tournament where the best of the best players competed weekly against each other with teams putting a lot of focus on the performance in it. The latter actually supports my point. Everyone cared immensely about proleague. Teams prioritized it above anything else and players oftentimes (usually?) did too, even above individual league success. The problem is that no one actually think pure difficulty is the metric for tournament importance. There are plenty of smaller premier tournaments where the winners went through absolutely insane juggernaughts to win (think Dark's TSL6 win or Maru's king of battle win where he slayed all the top zergs) but I'm pretty sure you and 95% of individuals would think that any GSL would be more important, even if it had easier competition. We could even take it to an extreme and make a point I've made in previous threads on this topic: plenty of korean qualifiers for tournaments from 2013-2016 were absolutely brutal. Nobody cared/cares beyond a footnote of potential if you made it through a stacked qualifier only to bomb out in the Ro32 of the offline tournament. It would be ludicrous for anyone now in talking about GOAT debates to go "well he made it through X KR qualifier and Y KR qualifier" etc., even if objectively it was more *impressive* to get through the qualifier than various tournament results. Here's the bottom line: world championship is/was the biggest tournament of the year. Everyone acknowledged/s it, players or fans. You have to play a lot of mindgames to still treat it as less important than any other tournament. | ||
The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
My point in regards to "it doesn't matter what players think" is simply that they have their own biases, and obviously i'd rather win 100k first place than 40k. You don't really have to play any mindgames per se, it just depends on what you think a goat debate should be about. Should it be about the easy narratives, then go to your world championship and think that messi needed that world cup win to even be in the contention for goat, if you care more about competitive levels, the skill being shown, etc, then the easy narrative alone isn't all that convincing any longer. Just to be clear, i think the world championship matters a ton, the player pool is really strong (though there is something to be said about qualifying for it early in the season and then potentially dropping off heavily, which isn't really a thing in tournaments which are more immediate), but yeah i think a starleague win during kespa's height was indeed 'worth more' than winning the world championship during that time. Now a starleague win is not nearly as impressive anymore, the relative strength of the korean scene compared to the others diminished heavily (though the overall scene did too, so any tournament win now isn't as impressive as it was in 2015). The thing is, people will never agree on what matters and how much it does, there are many different elements and people value things rather differently. I argued about this over the years with many different people, back when taeja was more popular similar conversations happened all the time. Things don't really change, do they. | ||
Pandain
United States12985 Posts
On March 02 2023 08:21 luxon wrote: Man this thread has really turned into a GOAT debate, when I just wanted to know if people would consider sc2 from here on out part of the sc2 history/all time discussion or not. This is hilarious | ||
Pandain
United States12985 Posts
On March 06 2023 06:15 The_Red_Viper wrote: It is true that difficulty alone isn't key, but a starleague had enough monetary motivation plus historical prestige (something the world championship didn't really have per se) to make players care about it, then you add the playerbase to it and you arguably get the environment one should care about a lot in a theoretical evaluation of importance. My point in regards to "it doesn't matter what players think" is simply that they have their own biases, and obviously i'd rather win 100k first place than 40k. You don't really have to play any mindgames per se, it just depends on what you think a goat debate should be about. Should it be about the easy narratives, then go to your world championship and think that messi needed that world cup win to even be in the contention for goat, if you care more about competitive levels, the skill being shown, etc, then the easy narrative alone isn't all that convincing any longer. Just to be clear, i think the world championship matters a ton, the player pool is really strong (though there is something to be said about qualifying for it early in the season and then potentially dropping off heavily, which isn't really a thing in tournaments which are more immediate), but yeah i think a starleague win during kespa's height was indeed 'worth more' than winning the world championship during that time. Now a starleague win is not nearly as impressive anymore, the relative strength of the korean scene compared to the others diminished heavily (though the overall scene did too, so any tournament win now isn't as impressive as it was in 2015). The thing is, people will never agree on what matters and how much it does, there are many different elements and people value things rather differently. I argued about this over the years with many different people, back when taeja was more popular similar conversations happened all the time. Things don't really change, do they. Yeah it's true. To be clear I highly respect your reasoning even if I strongly disagree with it; people just have different takes on what's important. No one's right, it's just a matter of perspective. Hence these conversations can go on for days, or in your case, years ![]() I guess to be clear I don't really consider the world championships so important because of their prize money (though its obviously relevant). It's just my understanding is that people care about it the most, even forget prize money, if nothing else but that intangible quality of being the world champion or performing well in front of the biggest audience of the year. | ||
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