|
United States1849 Posts
On July 25 2023 22:18 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2023 21:08 Curufinwe Feanor wrote:On July 25 2023 00:23 The_Red_Viper wrote: As for the goat debate, i personally have a very difficult time to look at the past few years and think that they can be as significant as when sc2 was at its peak from a competitive level, during the kespa days. It just doesn't make sense to me, it would be like if football suddenly didn't get new players challenging for the top, there was no bigger club support anymore with coaches and professional analysis, etc, and the old guard only got older while many superstars retired. Such a scene imo cannot be impactful enough to crown a goat when the environment just is so much lesser than before, it doesn't add up in my mind, no matter how skilled the best players are. Now ofc this works the most against someone like serral who just appeared too late in sc2's life cycle (though not only him, rogue who also gets thrown in a lot certainly has the same problem), but i think it is almost inarguable that this has to be an element to consider, the respective competitive level, NOT skill level, competitive level. (the skill level is without a doubt way higher, it's hilarious to me how people pretend people in 2010 or 2011 were anywhere near as good as players now; but no a diamond player also wouldn't win a gsl, just as delusional) This works on a sliding scale though, ofc tournaments in 2017 or 2018 were still a lot more 'worthy' than they are now. Just looking at gsl code s these days is kinda depressing tbh, that's not a starleague anymore, a gsl now is a joke compared to a few years ago, and even more of a joke compared to the starleagues of kespa days. Right now they'd need the likes of serral, reynor, clem, and a few other foreigners more than these players need the 'prestige' of a gsl win.
2) And most important: Its harder now for new players to challenge a 25 yo professional whos been playing the game for 10 years of more. This is the case in every sport and even some other older esports like LoL or CS, and it doesn't prevent new players at all. The same guys keep winning forever in sc2 because there isn't any new blood challenging them, simple as that. Maru and Serral are the best from the pool of players that sticked around, but that can't be compared to Nadal and Federer who managed to stay on top against a constant influx of new challengers. And that's not even factoring in the vastly reduced amount of championship contenders making every run much easier, and the far less professional practice environment
Can we stop trying to compare Esports and sports? the two exist on totally different timelines and totally different planes of stability. There really aren't parallels to make. Professional sports leagues have been around hundreds of years. They are worth billions of dollars, have incredible infrastructure and millions of people who play the game on an amateur level with aspirations of going pro.
StarCraft II is 13 years old. The longest career is 13 years old. Mvp was the best player in the world for 2 years, guess what, that's 15% of all the entire time SC2 has been out. This type of dynamic isn't a thing in pro sports.
When Mvp played in 2010, you have to remember that brood war had only been going for approximately 10 years. Again, this is the same issue, the careers are truncated, the player pool is limited (lest we forget that a ten year career was unfathomable during Brood War. Most of the players started in their early teens, went pro around high school age and were done within a few years. There aren't a hundred thousand promising prospects being born every year like real sports. I mean, i can go on and on about the million and one differences between a successful sport that has been played for century, and a video game that stopped getting new players who were good enough to be professional around 2013. In fact, the final KeSPA Draft was held only three years after the game had been released. Imagine a sport that basically got all their players from a single generation and then never got anyone else. You can't. This only happens in esports (all the newish palyers mentioned in the thread, serral, clem, maxpax etc have been playing professionally since at least 2019 (serral was playing in 2013!)). There's almost nothing in common between esports and pro sports other than the word sports (which esports coopted anyway to gain some degree of legitimacy) and that people get paid to play.
|
goat conversations are played and boring at this point, everyone knows it's life, but since we didnt let him keep playing everyones fighting for second.
i think the more interesting conversation is what country has been the most successful in sc2. if there were an olympics who would be up there. probably usa and germany, maybe korea.
|
On July 27 2023 07:24 luxon wrote: goat conversations are played and boring at this point, everyone knows it's life, but since we didnt let him keep playing everyones fighting for second.
i think the more interesting conversation is what country has been the most successful in sc2. if there were an olympics who would be up there. probably usa and germany, maybe korea. actually Life will be fighting for that 2nd place too because everyone knows the real sc2 goat is actually sAviOr. but we were mean to him so he never got to show it
|
On July 19 2023 04:35 QOGQOG wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2023 04:22 AzAlexZ wrote:On July 19 2023 03:56 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea Reynor would be a better comparison. right and I think he went 0-4 last time he played in GSL Yep. I think Serral would do better, since he's got less of an ego and would realize he needed to adjust things. But the lengthy preparation time would be quite different from the other tournaments he's been in.That said, with the total number of players in GSL down so far, I'm happy to have fewer non-Koreans taking up slots. Yeah I think Serral would have been smoked in the GSL. People with experience preparing build would have prepared builds and beat him.
It's a different beast. I think overtime he could adjust and win a GSL, but I don't think he would have won multiple GSLs in a row.
|
On August 07 2023 10:38 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2023 04:35 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 04:22 AzAlexZ wrote:On July 19 2023 03:56 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea Reynor would be a better comparison. right and I think he went 0-4 last time he played in GSL Yep. I think Serral would do better, since he's got less of an ego and would realize he needed to adjust things. But the lengthy preparation time would be quite different from the other tournaments he's been in.That said, with the total number of players in GSL down so far, I'm happy to have fewer non-Koreans taking up slots. Yeah I think Serral would have been smoked in the GSL. People with experience preparing build would have prepared builds and beat him. It's a different beast. I think overtime he could adjust and win a GSL, but I don't think he would have won multiple GSLs in a row.
But probably, neither would have Maru won 6 consecutives GSL's if Serral had been there as long as Maru was.
|
Northern Ireland25078 Posts
On August 07 2023 10:38 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2023 04:35 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 04:22 AzAlexZ wrote:On July 19 2023 03:56 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea Reynor would be a better comparison. right and I think he went 0-4 last time he played in GSL Yep. I think Serral would do better, since he's got less of an ego and would realize he needed to adjust things. But the lengthy preparation time would be quite different from the other tournaments he's been in.That said, with the total number of players in GSL down so far, I'm happy to have fewer non-Koreans taking up slots. Yeah I think Serral would have been smoked in the GSL. People with experience preparing build would have prepared builds and beat him. It's a different beast. I think overtime he could adjust and win a GSL, but I don't think he would have won multiple GSLs in a row. Serral can prep too and his baseline is higher than basically everyone. If Serral was making a legit shot at Code S the European hive mind would help out in prep, he’d likely be alright.
Especially with the new format being less prep-focused once we hit the Ro4 day.
The real shame is we haven’t seen it either way and it’s very much a hypothetical.
|
The real shame is we haven’t seen it either way and it’s very much a hypothetical.
This is the correct take. The money and travel are both very legitimate reasons for Serral to have not taken his shot at GSL, but there is no other tournament that compares to GSL in terms of what it takes in terms of prep, keeping your form up for weeks at a time, and playing so much on stage (especially before the format got condensed.)
So really, what you get is a situation where the fans end up losing. Is anyone saying that they prefer arguing about Serral vs.Maru based on a few encounters a year in weekend tournaments or team leagues rather than seeing them go at it in a Starleague 3 times a year?
Maybe Reynor will take another shot and win it all -- with how terran-heavy recent GSLs have been and how beastly his ZvT is, it's super-possible.
Then, if that happens, maybe it will light a fire under Serral. Again, my selfish wish as a fan is that either Serral goes over to GSL or some eccentric billionaire decides to burn a few million in order to make a GSL-like starleague in another region with the same demands on consistency, stage performance, and prep.
|
On September 03 2023 01:12 Locutus_ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2023 10:38 BronzeKnee wrote:On July 19 2023 04:35 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 04:22 AzAlexZ wrote:On July 19 2023 03:56 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea Reynor would be a better comparison. right and I think he went 0-4 last time he played in GSL Yep. I think Serral would do better, since he's got less of an ego and would realize he needed to adjust things. But the lengthy preparation time would be quite different from the other tournaments he's been in.That said, with the total number of players in GSL down so far, I'm happy to have fewer non-Koreans taking up slots. Yeah I think Serral would have been smoked in the GSL. People with experience preparing build would have prepared builds and beat him. It's a different beast. I think overtime he could adjust and win a GSL, but I don't think he would have won multiple GSLs in a row. But probably, neither would have Maru won 6 consecutives GSL's if Serral had been there as long as Maru was.
You can say the same about most of Serral's trophies not having a bunch of top Koreans present. The fact is if every top player was at all events they would both have a lot less trophies not just Maru. The large majority of Serral's trophies have 8 or less Koreans. Nowadays 8 Koreans is enough to get all but a couple big names missing. In 2018 and 2019, only 8 Koreans meant you were missing 10+ players who can beat anyone and win any event if they happen to be having a good day.
|
High quality interview, like the rest of your content. Thank you!
|
United States1849 Posts
On September 03 2023 06:40 JJH777 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2023 01:12 Locutus_ wrote:On August 07 2023 10:38 BronzeKnee wrote:On July 19 2023 04:35 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 04:22 AzAlexZ wrote:On July 19 2023 03:56 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea Reynor would be a better comparison. right and I think he went 0-4 last time he played in GSL Yep. I think Serral would do better, since he's got less of an ego and would realize he needed to adjust things. But the lengthy preparation time would be quite different from the other tournaments he's been in.That said, with the total number of players in GSL down so far, I'm happy to have fewer non-Koreans taking up slots. Yeah I think Serral would have been smoked in the GSL. People with experience preparing build would have prepared builds and beat him. It's a different beast. I think overtime he could adjust and win a GSL, but I don't think he would have won multiple GSLs in a row. But probably, neither would have Maru won 6 consecutives GSL's if Serral had been there as long as Maru was. You can say the same about most of Serral's trophies not having a bunch of top Koreans present. The fact is if every top player was at all events they would both have a lot less trophies not just Maru. The large majority of Serral's trophies have 8 or less Koreans. Nowadays 8 Koreans is enough to get all but a couple big names missing. In 2018 and 2019, only 8 Koreans meant you were missing 10+ players who can beat anyone and win any event if they happen to be having a good day.
Let's pretend there is a type of tournament called a "Premier Global Event". This list excludes tournaments that have large residency requirements (so EU/NA ESL stuff and Code S (since you need to be in South Korea for I believe 2 months as the qualifiers for Season 3 are being held next week and the event itself starts in October)). This does, however, include WCS Global Finals, IEM World Championships, DreamHack Season Finals, GSL vs the World, TSL etc etc (so basically anything that Koreans and Foreigners are given reasonably equal opportunity to play in).
If you were to compare some big name players from 2018 to the present and how often they did well, you end up with a list that looks like this:
Premier Global Event Wins/Final Appearances from 2018 to present Serral 13/19 Maru 5/9 Rogue 3/4 Reynor 7/11
Serral and Reynor do get more shots at these types of events due to the relative level of competition they have played in qualifiers (then again, Reynor is closer to Maru than Serral when it comes to final appearences. (Rogue also retired for some of this period and he had 2 wins in 2017 that are cut off so it's fair to say his numbers would be higher when measuring with a more favorable arbitrary period of time. They still wouldn't match Serral's, though)), but there's not enough noise to discredit the fact that Serral has been far more productive in events which were also attended by top tier Koreans like Rogue and Maru (he has won more events and reached more finals than both of them while doing so at a higher rate compared to the number of "Premier Global Events" for which each of them qualified and attended. Serral also has a career positive record against Maru and Rogue in case you were curious.
What you are asserting is total hogwash. Serral is better at beating Koreans than any Korean player has ever been in the history of the game (Solar is the only active Korean with a winning record against Serral. There are a few more, but all of them played Serral exclusively before he went full time pro in 2018. There are more metrics that bear this out but, yeah, Serral doesn't really care if he has to play Koreans or Foreigners. He wins more events than them and it doesn't matter who shows up.
|
On September 04 2023 05:46 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2023 06:40 JJH777 wrote:On September 03 2023 01:12 Locutus_ wrote:On August 07 2023 10:38 BronzeKnee wrote:On July 19 2023 04:35 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 04:22 AzAlexZ wrote:On July 19 2023 03:56 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea Reynor would be a better comparison. right and I think he went 0-4 last time he played in GSL Yep. I think Serral would do better, since he's got less of an ego and would realize he needed to adjust things. But the lengthy preparation time would be quite different from the other tournaments he's been in.That said, with the total number of players in GSL down so far, I'm happy to have fewer non-Koreans taking up slots. Yeah I think Serral would have been smoked in the GSL. People with experience preparing build would have prepared builds and beat him. It's a different beast. I think overtime he could adjust and win a GSL, but I don't think he would have won multiple GSLs in a row. But probably, neither would have Maru won 6 consecutives GSL's if Serral had been there as long as Maru was. You can say the same about most of Serral's trophies not having a bunch of top Koreans present. The fact is if every top player was at all events they would both have a lot less trophies not just Maru. The large majority of Serral's trophies have 8 or less Koreans. Nowadays 8 Koreans is enough to get all but a couple big names missing. In 2018 and 2019, only 8 Koreans meant you were missing 10+ players who can beat anyone and win any event if they happen to be having a good day. Let's pretend there is a type of tournament called a "Premier Global Event". This list excludes tournaments that have large residency requirements (so EU/NA ESL stuff and Code S (since you need to be in South Korea for I believe 2 months as the qualifiers for Season 3 are being held next week and the event itself starts in October)). This does, however, include WCS Global Finals, IEM World Championships, DreamHack Season Finals, GSL vs the World, TSL etc etc (so basically anything that Koreans and Foreigners are given reasonably equal opportunity to play in). If you were to compare some big name players from 2018 to the present and how often they did well, you end up with a list that looks like this: Premier Global Event Wins/Final Appearances from 2018 to present Serral 13/19 Maru 5/9 Rogue 3/4 Reynor 7/11 Serral and Reynor do get more shots at these types of events due to the relative level of competition they have played in qualifiers (then again, Reynor is closer to Maru than Serral when it comes to final appearences. (Rogue also retired for some of this period and he had 2 wins in 2017 that are cut off so it's fair to say his numbers would be higher when measuring with a more favorable arbitrary period of time. They still wouldn't match Serral's, though)), but there's not enough noise to discredit the fact that Serral has been far more productive in events which were also attended by top tier Koreans like Rogue and Maru (he has won more events and reached more finals than both of them while doing so at a higher rate compared to the number of "Premier Global Events" for which each of them qualified and attended. Serral also has a career positive record against Maru and Rogue in case you were curious. What you are asserting is total hogwash. Serral is better at beating Koreans than any Korean player has ever been in the history of the game (Solar is the only active Korean with a winning record against Serral. There are a few more, but all of them played Serral exclusively before he went full time pro in 2018. There are more metrics that bear this out but, yeah, Serral doesn't really care if he has to play Koreans or Foreigners. He wins more events than them and it doesn't matter who shows up. Did you really count HSC while excluding GSL? Not sure what such a flawed stat is supposed to show
|
United States1849 Posts
On September 04 2023 07:27 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2023 05:46 Mizenhauer wrote:On September 03 2023 06:40 JJH777 wrote:On September 03 2023 01:12 Locutus_ wrote:On August 07 2023 10:38 BronzeKnee wrote:On July 19 2023 04:35 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 04:22 AzAlexZ wrote:On July 19 2023 03:56 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea Reynor would be a better comparison. right and I think he went 0-4 last time he played in GSL Yep. I think Serral would do better, since he's got less of an ego and would realize he needed to adjust things. But the lengthy preparation time would be quite different from the other tournaments he's been in.That said, with the total number of players in GSL down so far, I'm happy to have fewer non-Koreans taking up slots. Yeah I think Serral would have been smoked in the GSL. People with experience preparing build would have prepared builds and beat him. It's a different beast. I think overtime he could adjust and win a GSL, but I don't think he would have won multiple GSLs in a row. But probably, neither would have Maru won 6 consecutives GSL's if Serral had been there as long as Maru was. You can say the same about most of Serral's trophies not having a bunch of top Koreans present. The fact is if every top player was at all events they would both have a lot less trophies not just Maru. The large majority of Serral's trophies have 8 or less Koreans. Nowadays 8 Koreans is enough to get all but a couple big names missing. In 2018 and 2019, only 8 Koreans meant you were missing 10+ players who can beat anyone and win any event if they happen to be having a good day. Let's pretend there is a type of tournament called a "Premier Global Event". This list excludes tournaments that have large residency requirements (so EU/NA ESL stuff and Code S (since you need to be in South Korea for I believe 2 months as the qualifiers for Season 3 are being held next week and the event itself starts in October)). This does, however, include WCS Global Finals, IEM World Championships, DreamHack Season Finals, GSL vs the World, TSL etc etc (so basically anything that Koreans and Foreigners are given reasonably equal opportunity to play in). If you were to compare some big name players from 2018 to the present and how often they did well, you end up with a list that looks like this: Premier Global Event Wins/Final Appearances from 2018 to present Serral 13/19 Maru 5/9 Rogue 3/4 Reynor 7/11 Serral and Reynor do get more shots at these types of events due to the relative level of competition they have played in qualifiers (then again, Reynor is closer to Maru than Serral when it comes to final appearences. (Rogue also retired for some of this period and he had 2 wins in 2017 that are cut off so it's fair to say his numbers would be higher when measuring with a more favorable arbitrary period of time. They still wouldn't match Serral's, though)), but there's not enough noise to discredit the fact that Serral has been far more productive in events which were also attended by top tier Koreans like Rogue and Maru (he has won more events and reached more finals than both of them while doing so at a higher rate compared to the number of "Premier Global Events" for which each of them qualified and attended. Serral also has a career positive record against Maru and Rogue in case you were curious. What you are asserting is total hogwash. Serral is better at beating Koreans than any Korean player has ever been in the history of the game (Solar is the only active Korean with a winning record against Serral. There are a few more, but all of them played Serral exclusively before he went full time pro in 2018. There are more metrics that bear this out but, yeah, Serral doesn't really care if he has to play Koreans or Foreigners. He wins more events than them and it doesn't matter who shows up. Did you really count HSC while excluding GSL? Not sure what such a flawed stat is supposed to show
Alright, let's take Next and some HSC cups from Serral. That's 9 such titles since 2018. Let's throw in Code S, SSL, OSL some kind of battles, a super tournament and Maru's at 16 since 2013 and 13 since 2018. This really isn't as big as a gap as you're pretending there is. Of course each of them are better than the other depending on what metrics you use. The point is, you're delusional if you think Maru is winning all those seasons of Code S if Serral is around, especially since Serral has a winning record against every Code S champion since he turned pro. I'm not trying to hate on Maru, you can't take those wins away from him and no one is beating him if you get to include the 8 OSL/SSL/Code S wins, but the numbers clearly dictate that Serral is an automatic championship contender in any Season of Code S he entered over the past 5 years (and his 10-3 record against Maru in Bo3+ matches in Legacy of the Void don't paint a pretty picture for Maru should they go head to head).
It's okay to admit that someone from a country other than South Korea can be good at StarCraft II.
|
On September 04 2023 05:46 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2023 06:40 JJH777 wrote:On September 03 2023 01:12 Locutus_ wrote:On August 07 2023 10:38 BronzeKnee wrote:On July 19 2023 04:35 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 04:22 AzAlexZ wrote:On July 19 2023 03:56 QOGQOG wrote:On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea Reynor would be a better comparison. right and I think he went 0-4 last time he played in GSL Yep. I think Serral would do better, since he's got less of an ego and would realize he needed to adjust things. But the lengthy preparation time would be quite different from the other tournaments he's been in.That said, with the total number of players in GSL down so far, I'm happy to have fewer non-Koreans taking up slots. Yeah I think Serral would have been smoked in the GSL. People with experience preparing build would have prepared builds and beat him. It's a different beast. I think overtime he could adjust and win a GSL, but I don't think he would have won multiple GSLs in a row. But probably, neither would have Maru won 6 consecutives GSL's if Serral had been there as long as Maru was. You can say the same about most of Serral's trophies not having a bunch of top Koreans present. The fact is if every top player was at all events they would both have a lot less trophies not just Maru. The large majority of Serral's trophies have 8 or less Koreans. Nowadays 8 Koreans is enough to get all but a couple big names missing. In 2018 and 2019, only 8 Koreans meant you were missing 10+ players who can beat anyone and win any event if they happen to be having a good day. Let's pretend there is a type of tournament called a "Premier Global Event". This list excludes tournaments that have large residency requirements (so EU/NA ESL stuff and Code S (since you need to be in South Korea for I believe 2 months as the qualifiers for Season 3 are being held next week and the event itself starts in October)). This does, however, include WCS Global Finals, IEM World Championships, DreamHack Season Finals, GSL vs the World, TSL etc etc (so basically anything that Koreans and Foreigners are given reasonably equal opportunity to play in). If you were to compare some big name players from 2018 to the present and how often they did well, you end up with a list that looks like this: Premier Global Event Wins/Final Appearances from 2018 to present Serral 13/19 Maru 5/9 Rogue 3/4 Reynor 7/11 Serral and Reynor do get more shots at these types of events due to the relative level of competition they have played in qualifiers (then again, Reynor is closer to Maru than Serral when it comes to final appearences. (Rogue also retired for some of this period and he had 2 wins in 2017 that are cut off so it's fair to say his numbers would be higher when measuring with a more favorable arbitrary period of time. They still wouldn't match Serral's, though)), but there's not enough noise to discredit the fact that Serral has been far more productive in events which were also attended by top tier Koreans like Rogue and Maru (he has won more events and reached more finals than both of them while doing so at a higher rate compared to the number of "Premier Global Events" for which each of them qualified and attended. Serral also has a career positive record against Maru and Rogue in case you were curious. What you are asserting is total hogwash. Serral is better at beating Koreans than any Korean player has ever been in the history of the game (Solar is the only active Korean with a winning record against Serral. There are a few more, but all of them played Serral exclusively before he went full time pro in 2018. There are more metrics that bear this out but, yeah, Serral doesn't really care if he has to play Koreans or Foreigners. He wins more events than them and it doesn't matter who shows up.
All I said was that Serral would have won less events if all events had all top players present in reply to someone who said Maru would have won less Code S with Serral present. Both are true statements. Almost every event besides Katowice is missing at least some top players who could potentially have popped off randomly and had a very good day. The double standard is that a bunch of Serral's events were missing 10+ top players while most of Maru's events were only really missing Serral and sometimes Reynor. 10+ top players add just as much if not more difficulty than 1 even if that 1 is the best of the bunch.
|
I can get behind the discussion about Serral being the GOAT or not, really. But people actually try to argue that Serral would suck in GSL? Seriously? I'm not a programer at all, definetly not a korean progamer, but how exactly do I have to imagine the mindset of someone like Maru when going to Katowice? "Should I prepare something special in case I run into the one guy I have the highest chance of needing to beat if I want to win? Nah, lets just wing it..." or what?
The biggest hurdle wouldn't be the preparation or any magical skill level GSL has, it would purely be a question of having to live in a different country for a few months. And apparently one were english is not that helpful to get by? But that is about the only hurdle the GSL presents - inconvenience.
|
|
|
|