This one is a big deal for me. I sat down with arguably the greatest SC2 player of all time, Serral. We covered: The GOAT debate, lack of Code S attempts, his start in SC and more! Watch and enjoy one of my best interviews yet.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
Doubt Serral could royal road Code S because it's a different beast from weekenders, but it's crazy to think he wouldn't have a very good chance at winning over multiple attempts.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
Show me on this doll where Serral touched you. You'll get through this.
On a serious note, this has been really cool content, keep em coming! It's interesting to see players' perspective on a variety of topics.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
Oh, surprise. He didn't compete in GSL, at least he faced them on Korean soil.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
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.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
Bluntly put, I went the ad hominem route because you went for one-liners in your arguing. If you did detail first why you think Serral is no GOAT, I wouldn't even have flinched. I don't mind a bit of aggressiveness, but reading that :
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
Not even surprised some are overreacting. Frankly, why there isn't even a debate in the first place. Each user has his own personal GOAT, I'm just appreciating the games as they are.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
Bluntly put, I went the ad hominem route because you went for one-liners in your arguing. If you did detail first why you think Serral is no GOAT, I wouldn't even have flinched. I don't mind a bit of aggressiveness, but reading that :
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
Not even surprised some are overreacting. Frankly, why there isn't even a debate in the first place. Each user has his own personal GOAT, I'm just appreciating the games as they are.
Yeah that's fair criticism. If I make a flippant comment it's wise to expect one in return.
One thing is definitely true, GSL vs the World was hype times, I wish we got more of those.
anyone who says serral isn't the goat is kidding themselves..."oh he doesn't play GSL"....well what happens when he plays the top players from GSL? more often times than not he destroys them..."GSL is different than a weekender". bullshit. for 2 reasons..1: every player in a weekender is playing under the same conditions. 2: when talking about the GOAT..theres no excuses, if u play in a tournament you either get it done or you don't, point blank period. All the Maru fanboys have no excuse serral is just better than him. same goes for rogue/dark/hero/stats etc. stop making excuses and recognize serral is the best player in sc2 history.
On July 19 2023 06:51 Itsxjoeyy wrote: anyone who says serral isn't the goat is kidding themselves..."oh he doesn't play GSL"....well what happens when he plays the top players from GSL? more often times than not he destroys them..."GSL is different than a weekender". bullshit. for 2 reasons..1: every player in a weekender is playing under the same conditions. 2: when talking about the GOAT..theres no excuses, if u play in a tournament you either get it done or you don't, point blank period. All the Maru fanboys have no excuse serral is just better than him. same goes for rogue/dark/hero/stats etc. stop making excuses and recognize serral is the best player in sc2 history.
To make it fair on both sides, I'll also chime on this.
I'm not a fan on anybody from a specific region, I'll respect the achievements. Not using F-words to demean by the same way as to defend somebody else. Serral might be the number one in total prize pool, but it's not 100 percent sure he is the best in the global events, both him and Rogue have two Global Finals/IEM wins (Rogue might even have three if I also count IEM Season XII in 2018, but I don't know if it really counts as such). Should the best be defined by being as consistent over a longer period of time ? It should rather be Maru then. Would there have been that debate in the case his style was not so great (speaking about Bly-levels of sheaningans) ?
I'll only name a GOAT if the number of Major/Premier trophies of the player are head and shoulders above everybody else in history, which is not the case just yet. If SC2 is still there beyond this season and one gets a 3rd or 4th IEM, then maybe.
Circling back to the title, what does count is whether he's happy or not with the choice he made not trying a regular season of GSL, regardless of the reasons.
Serral has, or at least had the highest winrate vS Korean players ever, and he usually only played the better tier of players who made it to international tournaments. He wouldn’t be a lock but to say he wouldn’t have a shot at Code S is daft.
Frankly it feels like it’s flipped now from a few years ago, where Code S needs Serral for legitimacy much more than Serral needs it. ‘Needs’ being a strong word
I still enjoy it as a tournament but it’s so shorn of championship tier players nowadays.
Can anyone seriously say that Maru going G6L (and no doubt behind) was anything remotely close to his quadruple or the quest for the G5L?
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
He said years ago plain and simple that playing in GSL is not profitable enough. In the end its his decision to stay in Korea for months, or not.
Good for Serral. The korean scene is struggling already as it is, it wouldn't be fair to farm them for their prize money. Why show up for a month or two for $7,910.46 USD when he can get that in a weekend?
On July 19 2023 07:52 BonitiilloO wrote: Serral had advantage with Zerg being op for so long
you mean when maru was winning like 4 gsls in a row? 2019? all the way till now? yeah no... certain players transcend balance. Serral, Maru, herO... they are just ~120-150 IQ minimum and are once in a generation types of people. Nothing short of exceptional.
On July 19 2023 07:55 phodacbiet wrote: Good for Serral. The korean scene is struggling already as it is, it wouldn't be fair to farm them for their prize money. Why show up for a month or two for $7,910.46 USD when he can get that in a weekend?
More like 16k if you count the donation and patreon support, but yeah, now is too late for that, but he got plenty of chance to do it before this year when the prize pool was much higher. He just think its not worth it for him to spend a month or two oversea and thats all.
If anything, Serral is probably even more terrifying in the GSL format with the amount of time to prepare for each opponent, considering he is quite possibly one of the most calculated players to ever do it.
On July 19 2023 07:52 BonitiilloO wrote: Serral had advantage with Zerg being op for so long
you mean when maru was winning like 4 gsls in a row? 2019? all the way till now? yeah no... certain players transcend balance. Serral, Maru, herO... they are just ~120-150 IQ minimum and are once in a generation types of people. Nothing short of exceptional.
Yeah you can check Liquipedia Premier Tournaments Zerg has been by far the most winningiest race in thelast 5 years, even if you remove Serral from the equation
On July 19 2023 17:38 digmouse wrote: If anything, Serral is probably even more terrifying in the GSL format with the amount of time to prepare for each opponent, considering he is quite possibly one of the most calculated players to ever do it.
Possibly, but there's no way to know. TaeJa also was a pretty calculated player but couldn't do it in the preparation format
Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Maru - Serral bo69 with every single map from 2018 till now. If somebody is willing to set up that event, I think a lot of people would contribute.
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
Rogue is inconsistent he isnt the goat in my personal opinion, maru and serral have shown very high consistency.
Rogue to me is one who has abused meta's and is not that impressive in my personal opinion
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
Rogue is inconsistent he isnt the goat in my personal opinion, maru and serral have shown very high consistency.
Rogue to me is one who has abused meta's and is not that impressive in my personal opinion
I dont know, 1 Blizzcon, 2 IEM and 4 GSL code S with 2 Super Tournament is not that impressive? I am taking the guy who won first place 3 times over the guy who make Ro4/8 10 times, consistency doesnt mean much unless you win tournaments imo at this level of performance. And I dont see how Rogue abused the Meta and the other Zergs, including Serral, didnt.
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
Rogue is inconsistent he isnt the goat in my personal opinion, maru and serral have shown very high consistency.
Rogue to me is one who has abused meta's and is not that impressive in my personal opinion
I dont know, 1 Blizzcon, 2 IEM and 4 GSL code S with 2 Super Tournament is not that impressive? I am taking the guy who won first place 3 times over the guy who make Ro4/8 10 times, consistency doesnt mean much unless you win tournaments imo at this level of performance. And I dont see how Rogue abused the Meta and the other Zergs, including Serral, didnt.
The only difference between Rogue and the other zergs regarding "abusing the meta", is that Rogue publicly acknowledged that zerg was super strong at the time, and that motivated him to practice and get results because of that fact.
Also, he still beat Maru in the GSL finals later on when zerg was not as strong (using mindgames / good roach builds), and while zerg was strong in 2017 when he won BlizzCon (because of the hydra patch) it was not as good as 2018 zerg and especially 2019 zerg (2019 being imo comparable to 2012 BL/infestor)
Rogue is pretty clearly the goat IMO, unless you want to value Maru's heart of the swarm super heavily because the scene was deeper back then.
Serral could definitely put himself in contention by winning another Katowice/the Gamers8 tournament though, I don't think the scene is thin enough yet for further achievements to be meaningless. A Katowice/Gamers8 win would help cement Maru's claim too.
What is this Gamers 8 thing I so frequently see mentioned?
Rogue for me, definitely up there. If his Starleague breakthroughs had come a year or two earlier, with the same resume he’d have a much stronger case for GOAThood for me.
Not disparaging Rogue but he had a pretty similar resume to $o$, some big WCs and a consistently good player, good Proleague record, but he only started to hoover up Code S titles when the scene was clearly not as cutthroat.
Just too many variables IMO to have any kind of definitive GOAT
On July 20 2023 00:58 WombaT wrote: What is this Gamers 8 thing I so frequently see mentioned?
Rogue for me, definitely up there. If his Starleague breakthroughs had come a year or two earlier, with the same resume he’d have a much stronger case for GOAThood for me.
Not disparaging Rogue but he had a pretty similar resume to $o$, some big WCs and a consistently good player, good Proleague record, but he only started to hoover up Code S titles when the scene was clearly not as cutthroat.
Just too many variables IMO to have any kind of definitive GOAT
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
I don't think Dark or Reynor are top 5 contenders. Especially not Reynor, he just doesn't have enough wins at offline tournaments with Koreans. Inno, Serral, Rogue, and Maru (in some order) are easy top 4, fifth is very debatable - one of MVP, Zest, sOs, or Life would be my pick (MVP could be excluded depending on how much you want to value early SC2 achievements), though I can see an argument for other people too.
On July 20 2023 00:58 WombaT wrote: What is this Gamers 8 thing I so frequently see mentioned?
Rogue for me, definitely up there. If his Starleague breakthroughs had come a year or two earlier, with the same resume he’d have a much stronger case for GOAThood for me.
Not disparaging Rogue but he had a pretty similar resume to $o$, some big WCs and a consistently good player, good Proleague record, but he only started to hoover up Code S titles when the scene was clearly not as cutthroat.
Just too many variables IMO to have any kind of definitive GOAT
Oh great so Saudi Arabia aren’t just throwing money at footballl… Thanks for the info
Hey I’m sure it’ll be a swell tournament but can’t say I’ll care that much either. They could have thrown money at the GSL and taken a title sponsor role and that’d be much better for the health of the overall scene.
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
I don't think Dark or Reynor are top 5 contenders. Especially not Reynor, he just doesn't have enough wins at offline tournaments with Koreans. Inno, Serral, Rogue, and Maru (in some order) are easy top 4, fifth is very debatable - one of MVP, Zest, sOs, or Life would be my pick (MVP could be excluded depending on how much you want to value early SC2 achievements), though I can see an argument for other people too.
Dark’s easily top 10 for me, if anything I think he’s underrated. He’s been one of the top players in the world for years after all
Across that span he’s rarely been the best. It’s more like long, long period where he’s been amongst the very best and the top 1/2 Korean Zerg
Whereas I think Serral, Maru, Inno, Mvp have had periods where they’re the world’s top player in a way it’s hard to argue against.
For such a ranking I go off mostly how good at Starcraft you are, absolute peak and I weight that quite heavily. Longevity can work as a tiebreaker if needs be, other things being equal.
Rain for example didn’t stick around that long, but in his name he pretty much was the Protoss in an incredibly competitive era.
People saying Reynor is a realistic top 5 all time contender are nuts. He’s very good but Serral has him beat in every category, by a huge distance. Reynor can beat anyone on his day and has some big wins, Serral has pretty much a winning record versus almost everyone in the scene, a ton more international tournaments under his belt, highest vKorean winrate, highest Aligulac ratings, an additional World Championship and more regionals. Reynor’s last crack at Code S didn’t go well either, although at least he tried.
Reynor can beat anyone, Serral usually does, that’s the difference.
Reynor’s accomplishments are closer to Clem’s than they are to Serral’s if we’re realistically talking GOAT rankings. Clem’s still phenomenal but he’s yet to take that next leap to being a consistent international tournament winner
Dark has been more consistent than Rogue but he hasnt won as many title, and since his world title in 2019, hasnt gotten a good run in IEM, although I think he has won more weekend tournaments. I would definitely put him somewhere in top 5.
As for Reynor, hes already won a world title and 2 runner up, thats super good considering his early age. He actually out-perform in big tournament unlike Clem who seems to fall off outside of EU tournaments. The problem for Reynor is his unwillingness to play like Serral, especially in ZvT, which I think hes more than capable of. If Reynor get another world title then hes booked in top 5 for me, the ony thing that can stop Reynor from doing that is Maru-turtle style, his lack of interest for ZvZ and possibly LoL/Stormgate.
Not that I hate Reynor or anything he’s incredibly good and 100% the second best foreigner the scene has seen, in case anyone thinks I’m denigrating him!
He really shouldn’t have won his WC though, both Serral and Maru hardcore threw games on that run
But he did hold his nerve and capitalise so can’t hold that against him!
I just wouldn’t weight the WC too highly unless it’s a tiebreaker between two otherwise evenly matched players
I think the community has a pretty good gauge on this in general. As great as sOs was few really consider those wins above his general career
I mean realistically who is greater Clem or Oliveira? I’d imagine most will go for the former, one miracle tournament run doesn’t trump Clem winning a bunch of regionals, sometimes taking both Reynor and Serral out in one bracket.
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
I don't think Dark or Reynor are top 5 contenders. Especially not Reynor, he just doesn't have enough wins at offline tournaments with Koreans. Inno, Serral, Rogue, and Maru (in some order) are easy top 4, fifth is very debatable - one of MVP, Zest, sOs, or Life would be my pick (MVP could be excluded depending on how much you want to value early SC2 achievements), though I can see an argument for other people too.
I'd say Zest has the 5th spot locked down. He's the best Protoss, won an IEM Katowice (+2 runner ups) and 2 GSLs (+2 runner ups), was dominant in the Kespa era and got high placings all the way up to 2022 (including a farewell super tournament win).
After that it's probably a tossup between Stats, sOs, Life, Dark and Mvp, maybe even herO and possibly soO depending on how much you value 2nd place
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
Nah, if you exclude one it'd be Serral. Rogue has 3 Katowice/Blizzcon and 4 GSLs but no results during the Kespa era, Maru has no World Championship but very strong results during the Kespa era and a record number of GSLs. Serral has 2 IEM Katowice/Blizzcon but neither results during the Kespa era nor a GSL win
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
I don't think Dark or Reynor are top 5 contenders. Especially not Reynor, he just doesn't have enough wins at offline tournaments with Koreans. Inno, Serral, Rogue, and Maru (in some order) are easy top 4, fifth is very debatable - one of MVP, Zest, sOs, or Life would be my pick (MVP could be excluded depending on how much you want to value early SC2 achievements), though I can see an argument for other people too.
I'd say Zest has the 5th spot locked down. He's the best Protoss, won an IEM Katowice (+2 runner ups) and 2 GSLs (+2 runner ups), was dominant in the Kespa era and got high placings all the way up to 2022 (including a farewell super tournament win).
After that it's probably a tossup between Stats, sOs, Life, Dark and Mvp, maybe even herO and possibly soO depending on how much you value 2nd place
Zest had long, long periods of basically doing nothing and then having occasional peaking, especially latterly. And his deep runs were usually predicated on some new build that once figured got smashed. He had decent Katowice results despite pretty damn mediocre GSL ones
Rain, shorter period but he was better while he was active.
Latter day Zest came up with a cool build, rode it deep and got absolutely smashed when people examined it and figured counter play.
There’s maybe not been a better build order optimiser in SC2 history than Zest. Equally ‘Zest macro’ isn’t a meme for no reason
Life, definitely better, controversies beside. At a time he was the scariest player in the whole scene. Mvp basically wrote the blueprint on how Terran should be played, and was still competitive when injuries hit. Honestly Taeja despite not really doing it in GSL was a crazy consistent tournament winner elsewhere in his pomp
In terms of Protoss? Stats was obdurate and outside of Rain probably the best going in terms of a wide skillset. herO won a whole bunch more tournaments. Zest maybe peaked for the big party tournies.
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
Nah, if you exclude one it'd be Serral. Rogue has 3 Katowice/Blizzcon and 4 GSLs but no results during the Kespa era, Maru has no World Championship but very strong results during the Kespa era and a record number of GSLs. Serral has 2 IEM Katowice/Blizzcon but neither results during the Kespa era nor a GSL win
Serral does have said results though, going way back.
GSL vS the World, Homestory, Assembly, the international ESL competitions. That he basically never places worse than Ro8, ever
Plenty of Korean competitors in interview say he’s the man to beat now, I’ll take their word for it
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
Nah, if you exclude one it'd be Serral. Rogue has 3 Katowice/Blizzcon and 4 GSLs but no results during the Kespa era, Maru has no World Championship but very strong results during the Kespa era and a record number of GSLs. Serral has 2 IEM Katowice/Blizzcon but neither results during the Kespa era nor a GSL win
Best performing World Championship player (though not by a lot I will admit), most Premier event wins, won Premier events in basically every region...no, you really can't exclude Serral from the Top 5.
Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
Nah, if you exclude one it'd be Serral. Rogue has 3 Katowice/Blizzcon and 4 GSLs but no results during the Kespa era, Maru has no World Championship but very strong results during the Kespa era and a record number of GSLs. Serral has 2 IEM Katowice/Blizzcon but neither results during the Kespa era nor a GSL win
Serral does have said results though, going way back.
GSL vS the World, Homestory, Assembly, the international ESL competitions. That he basically never places worse than Ro8, ever
Plenty of Korean competitors in interview say he’s the man to beat now, I’ll take their word for it
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
Nah, if you exclude one it'd be Serral. Rogue has 3 Katowice/Blizzcon and 4 GSLs but no results during the Kespa era, Maru has no World Championship but very strong results during the Kespa era and a record number of GSLs. Serral has 2 IEM Katowice/Blizzcon but neither results during the Kespa era nor a GSL win
Best performing World Championship player (though not by a lot I will admit), most Premier event wins, won Premier events in basically every region...no, you really can't exclude Serral from the Top 5.
No, you really can't. But personally I think he has the worst case for being the Goat out of him Maru and Rogue
Not surprised he didn't feel the need to test himself in Korea considering how much easier it was beating up on foreigners and getting preferential seeding because of the easy points he obtained facing lesser players. Impressive too how his seeding at those mixed tournaments always let him face more foreigners than anyone else who was to reach the finals.
Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Still haven't seen a comment that disagreed with that. There's a pretty large difference between he's a monster and he's the Goat. Maru and Rogue are monsters too as well as several other players
On July 20 2023 06:37 JJH777 wrote: Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
Mvp only was great when the skill-level was not that high, Zest has huge chunks in his career in which he was barely Top 20, Innovation is great but lacks the World Championships (even more than Maru) and Life...no comment on that.
I will admit, I jumped the gun a lot with Dark and Reynor being "clear Top 5 after the big three". But if you really think they "don't even touch the resumes" of other players then I really can't help you.
On July 20 2023 06:37 JJH777 wrote: Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
Mvp only was great when the skill-level was not that high, Zest has huge chunks in his career in which he was barely Top 20, Innovation is great but lacks the World Championships (even more than Maru) and Life...no comment on that.
I will admit, I jumped the gun a lot with Dark and Reynor being "clear Top 5 after the big three". But if you really think they "don't even touch the resumes" of other players then I really can't help you.
Skill level wasn't at the highest when Mvp was the best but competition level was. There were hundreds of people trying to be professional SC2 players playing 40+ hours/week. The skill level might be higher now but the competition level is so low (so few fulltime pros) that it's debatable when winning is more impressive. Considering how much more Mvp has won than Reynor that's barely even relevant though. No amount of skill level difference overcomes that trophy discrepancy. Trophies are the most important thing and Reynor trophy list isn't anywhere near Mvp, Inno, or even Zest.
Zest has won a Katowice, 2 GSL a Kespa cup, super tournament, and other small stuff. Reynor's only big win is an online Katowice. Then he's won some mid tier stuff comparable to a super tournament or Kespa cup. Comparing those 2 players in overall achievement is insulting and pure bias. You can say Reynor was better skill wise in 2020-2023 but saying he's achieved more over his entire SC2 career is just being blind.
On July 20 2023 06:37 JJH777 wrote: Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
Mvp only was great when the skill-level was not that high, Zest has huge chunks in his career in which he was barely Top 20, Innovation is great but lacks the World Championships (even more than Maru) and Life...no comment on that.
I will admit, I jumped the gun a lot with Dark and Reynor being "clear Top 5 after the big three". But if you really think they "don't even touch the resumes" of other players then I really can't help you.
The skill level hasn’t improved much across the extensions. It’s wildly different games that reward different skill sets (see how sOs who was great at HotS couldn’t do much in LotV).
INnoVation lacks the world championships but barely any terrans won world championships so it’s hard to take that against him, it’s just how balance happened to be
The clear top 2 is Rogue and Maru, then it’s INno, then it’s up for debate between Zest / mvp / Life / Serral depending on your criterion
On July 20 2023 06:37 JJH777 wrote: Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
Mvp only was great when the skill-level was not that high, Zest has huge chunks in his career in which he was barely Top 20, Innovation is great but lacks the World Championships (even more than Maru) and Life...no comment on that.
I will admit, I jumped the gun a lot with Dark and Reynor being "clear Top 5 after the big three". But if you really think they "don't even touch the resumes" of other players then I really can't help you.
This is the thing with a strategy game, come up with a great strategy, if someone with better execution copies it they’ll be better than you.
Innovators IMO are a little underrated, i weight them pretty highly.
Mvp basically invented proper macro Terran strategically. And at his time was also the best Terran mechanically as well
Then he wasn’t.
But to me greatness isn’t as simple as ‘best’, it’s something much more intangible. It’s breaking barriers, it’s indomitable will, it’s a heroic underdog story. Serral has it in spades, he didn’t just break the ‘can compete with the best Koreans’ barrier that Neeb and to an extent Stephano pushed through, he demolished it
Injury crippled Mvp still ran a crazy GSL gauntlet and still ended up close to taking out Life playing mech as his body couldn’t handle playing bio against such a quality component.
On July 20 2023 06:37 JJH777 wrote: Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
Mvp only was great when the skill-level was not that high, Zest has huge chunks in his career in which he was barely Top 20, Innovation is great but lacks the World Championships (even more than Maru) and Life...no comment on that.
I will admit, I jumped the gun a lot with Dark and Reynor being "clear Top 5 after the big three". But if you really think they "don't even touch the resumes" of other players then I really can't help you.
The skill level hasn’t improved much across the extensions. It’s wildly different games that reward different skill sets (see how sOs who was great at HotS couldn’t do much in LotV).
INnoVation lacks the world championships but barely any terrans won world championships so it’s hard to take that against him, it’s just how balance happened to be
The clear top 2 is Rogue and Maru, then it’s INno, then it’s up for debate between Zest / mvp / Life / Serral depending on your criterion
On July 20 2023 06:37 JJH777 wrote: Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
Mvp only was great when the skill-level was not that high, Zest has huge chunks in his career in which he was barely Top 20, Innovation is great but lacks the World Championships (even more than Maru) and Life...no comment on that.
I will admit, I jumped the gun a lot with Dark and Reynor being "clear Top 5 after the big three". But if you really think they "don't even touch the resumes" of other players then I really can't help you.
The skill level hasn’t improved much across the extensions. It’s wildly different games that reward different skill sets (see how sOs who was great at HotS couldn’t do much in LotV).
INnoVation lacks the world championships but barely any terrans won world championships so it’s hard to take that against him, it’s just how balance happened to be
The clear top 2 is Rogue and Maru, then it’s INno, then it’s up for debate between Zest / mvp / Life / Serral depending on your criterion
Nah, Inno when he first burst onto the scene was an unbelievable monster of macro and mechanics
When the wider scene caught up on those metrics he fell off a cliff. I’d still consider breakout Inno, relative to the scene one of the scariest players we’ve ever seen
Rogue had a similar resume to sOs and won a bunch of Code S titles when both the scene depth had dropped and Zerg was super strong
Serral has better win rates across the board, has 2 world titles, has a ton of international titles the same players have competed in, Has earned the most money. Has the best vKorean win rate ever, has various Aligulac peak records.
It’s like when Taeja played but even more extreme because foreigner. Taeja would generally take multiple international tournies a year vs the exact same opposition, often who weren’t winning anything but it didn’t count for some reason because it wasn’t Code
On July 20 2023 06:37 JJH777 wrote: Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
Mvp only was great when the skill-level was not that high, Zest has huge chunks in his career in which he was barely Top 20, Innovation is great but lacks the World Championships (even more than Maru) and Life...no comment on that.
I will admit, I jumped the gun a lot with Dark and Reynor being "clear Top 5 after the big three". But if you really think they "don't even touch the resumes" of other players then I really can't help you.
The skill level hasn’t improved much across the extensions. It’s wildly different games that reward different skill sets (see how sOs who was great at HotS couldn’t do much in LotV).
INnoVation lacks the world championships but barely any terrans won world championships so it’s hard to take that against him, it’s just how balance happened to be
The clear top 2 is Rogue and Maru, then it’s INno, then it’s up for debate between Zest / mvp / Life / Serral depending on your criterion
I think there's some truth to what you're saying. If you forced a modern player known for their good micro/multitasking like Clem to play WoL, they would not be able to play near as fast because many core units are slower, the game progresses slower, etc. So yes, some portion of the "skill" we see today is enabled by LoTV being more fast paced.
But at the same time there's some micro that has stayed similar over time, and if you compare things like baiting widow mines, burrowing and reburrowing, creep respreading, etc, there is a marked difference between late HOTS and today. Players have had more time to practice since then so I wouldn't hold it against older pros, but the skill level is pretty obviously higher.
On July 20 2023 06:37 JJH777 wrote: Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
Mvp only was great when the skill-level was not that high, Zest has huge chunks in his career in which he was barely Top 20, Innovation is great but lacks the World Championships (even more than Maru) and Life...no comment on that.
I will admit, I jumped the gun a lot with Dark and Reynor being "clear Top 5 after the big three". But if you really think they "don't even touch the resumes" of other players then I really can't help you.
The skill level hasn’t improved much across the extensions. It’s wildly different games that reward different skill sets (see how sOs who was great at HotS couldn’t do much in LotV).
INnoVation lacks the world championships but barely any terrans won world championships so it’s hard to take that against him, it’s just how balance happened to be
The clear top 2 is Rogue and Maru, then it’s INno, then it’s up for debate between Zest / mvp / Life / Serral depending on your criterion
How can someone be this wrong
About what exactly? Maru and Rogue being top 2 is kinda obvious, with INno being too 3 behind them also obvious
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
Skill wise he is probably the best zerg ever, and he won sufficiently to be in the top 10
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
Skill wise he is probably the best zerg ever, and he won sufficiently to be in the top 10
It's pretty hard to not put him in top five. You would have to really stretch the "2012-2016 was peak sc2 competition" argument to it's absolute extreme
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
He is one of the Serral hater / Maru fanboy
Serral has already been the undisputed general consensus goat for years now. Most people have Dark and Rogue comfortably ahead of Maru as well. We can start taking Maru seriously once he wins a world championship in the meantime he can keep winning GSL in the B league
On July 19 2023 21:58 Drahkn wrote: Can someone with a lot of money please set up a prize pool for 3 bo7 events where Serral and Maru will battle it out for the greatest player of all time and we can settle this?
Don’t you mean Rogue and Maru? Since Rogue is in the military it wouldn’t make much sense. Serral is not in the goat conversation atm even though he might have a case for top 5
*Thread after thread discussing if Serral is the GOAT or not* "lol, Serral isn't in the discussion, but he maaaaybeeee is Top 5"
I personally would never go there, but if you wanted to exclude one out of Rogue, Serral and Maru from the Top 5, it would be Maru for sure. Which, again, would still be stupid because these three obviously make the Top 3 of all time, with Dark and Reynor trailing a bit behind.
He is one of the Serral hater / Maru fanboy
Serral has already been the undisputed general consensus goat for years now. Most people have Dark and Rogue comfortably ahead of Maru as well. We can start taking Maru seriously once he wins a world championship in the meantime he can keep winning GSL in the B league
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
2018 - in what world is Dark and Rogue an easy bracket lmao, sure he didn't face Maru but I don't think sOs and not seeding is to blame for that 2022 - look at who was there? Which other player in the world at the time would have put up near the challenge of those 4 players
No serious person would dispute that EU is easier to qualify from. The idea that Serral would fail to qualify at all from Korea is ludicrous though (especially in the EPT era where almost every active Korean gets to play in world championships.) The claim I was responding to was that Serral's seeding gives him super easy brackets. Yes, I did only mention two tournaments, but they are the most important tournaments he won and there are many more tough brackets that Serral went though in international competitions. If you'd really like we can go through all Serral's tournament wins though, yes in some he got easy brackets (often because more threatening players fell flat at earlier rounds) but he's also beaten all the best players in the world many times.
Is Serral the goat? Probably not, I still think that's Rogue, but putting him any lower than top 5 or top 3 is silly.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Honestly, it's so hard to take you seriously that I'm half-convinced you're trolling. Don't really care who you think is GOAT and the banter is interesting (when people make real arguments), but pretending like the guy with the best win rates, most money, and best scouting/defensive/macro/late-game play did it through some fluke is laughable.
Whether you like it or not, a plurality of people seem to think Serral is the GOAT or top 1/2. I'm not even sure I'd agree, but taking apart Serral's case beyond him not competing in GSL (which, while I would have loved to see for the spectacle, probably makes 0 sense for him) is just shouting into the wind.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
At this stage the GSL needs Serral as much as he needs it prestige wise
He still won a ton of fully open qualification international tournaments
Still won the two GSL vS the Worlds
Still has absurd win rates in all matchups so ‘he hasn’t done it in GSL’ feels a huge stretch
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
On July 20 2023 06:37 JJH777 wrote: Thinking Dark/Reynor are 4th and 5th on the goat list is some truly next level recency and Zerg bias almost even worse than calling Serral the clear goat. They don't even touch the resumes of players like Inno/Life/Zest/Mvp. Not surprised that it's the people who think Serral's the clear goat saying that. At least you're consistent I guess.
Mvp only was great when the skill-level was not that high, Zest has huge chunks in his career in which he was barely Top 20, Innovation is great but lacks the World Championships (even more than Maru) and Life...no comment on that.
I will admit, I jumped the gun a lot with Dark and Reynor being "clear Top 5 after the big three". But if you really think they "don't even touch the resumes" of other players then I really can't help you.
The skill level hasn’t improved much across the extensions. It’s wildly different games that reward different skill sets (see how sOs who was great at HotS couldn’t do much in LotV).
INnoVation lacks the world championships but barely any terrans won world championships so it’s hard to take that against him, it’s just how balance happened to be
The clear top 2 is Rogue and Maru, then it’s INno, then it’s up for debate between Zest / mvp / Life / Serral depending on your criterion
How can someone be this wrong
About what exactly? Maru and Rogue being top 2 is kinda obvious, with INno being too 3 behind them also obvious
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
Oh, surprise. He didn't compete in GSL, at least he faced them on Korean soil.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
Aligulac's Top 20 nemesis list: Serral: Happy / Vortix / Jaedong / Forgg / Hyun Maru: Serral / Soulkey / Parting / Jaedong / San Cure: Dark / Inno / Byun / Rogue / Maru (vs Serral -12 games) Dark: herO / Rogue / Byun / Maxpax / Arthur (vs Serral +1; vs Maru - 4 games). But in matches, Dark is -1 vs Serral. Clem: Reynor / Serral / Maru / Cure / herO Reynor: Serral / Maru / Penguin / sLivko / Narcotic Byun: Maru / Inno / Serral / Parting / Trap herO: Maru / sOs / Neeb / MKP/ Stats (vs Serral -3) MaxPax: Clem / Heromarine / Cure / Serral / Reynor (vs Maru: -9) Solar: Maru / Inno / Dark / herO / Serral Showtime: Clem / Serral / Cure / Maxpax / Maru Oliveira: Solar / Dark / Zest / Trap / Cure (vs Serral -21; vs Maru -21) Ragnarok: Maru / Byun / Dark / Inno / herO (vs Serral -2) Gumiho: Dark / herO / Solar / Byun / Zest (vs Serral -5; vs Maru -24) Classic: Dark / Byun / Cure / Solar / Maru (vs Serral - 11) Heromarine: Reynor & Serral / Clem / Solar / Showtime (vs Maru -11) Bunny: Zest / Inno / Solar / Dark / Stats (vs Serral - 8;vs Maru -12) Stats: Dark / SoO / Serral / Gumiho / Elazer (vs Maru -5) Elazer: Clem / Serral / Nerchio / Uthermal / Solar (vs Maru loses for sure) Lambo: Clem / Showtime / Heromarine / Serral / Reynor (vs Maru loses for sure)
Maru wins head to head historically against everyone... but for Serral =)
Serral wins ALL.
GSL argument is bullshit. Serral has faced them all, time after time, and won them all.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
Oh, surprise. He didn't compete in GSL, at least he faced them on Korean soil.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
GSL argument is bullshit. Serral has faced them all, time after time, and won them all.
Does the same apply to Maru, and not having won a world championship?
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
Oh, surprise. He didn't compete in GSL, at least he faced them on Korean soil.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
GSL argument is bullshit. Serral has faced them all, time after time, and won them all.
Does the same apply to Maru, and not having won a world championship?
I just pulled the statistics to show that Serral is proved against the Koreans, same as Maru. Just slightly better, cus of their head to head encounters. But as to championships, i still think Serral is ahead. The big ones Serral has won, Maru was in them (world championships, GSL vs The World); The reverse is not true. We cant say if Maru would have the same amount of GSL if Serral had participated in all of them.
But one thing is true, in head to head statistics, there isn't a single player today who can say hes better than Serral. And that aint true for Maru.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
Oh, surprise. He didn't compete in GSL, at least he faced them on Korean soil.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
GSL argument is bullshit. Serral has faced them all, time after time, and won them all.
Does the same apply to Maru, and not having won a world championship?
I just pulled the statistics to show that Serral is proved against the Koreans, same as Maru. Just slightly better, cus of their head to head encounters. But as to championships, i still think Serral is ahead. The big ones Serral has won, Maru was in them (world championships, GSL vs The World); The reverse is not true. We cant say if Maru would have the same amount of GSL if Serral had participated in all of them.
But one thing is true, in head to head statistics, there isn't a single player today who can say hes better than Serral. And that aint true for Maru.
Well, he won WESG, DH Last Chance, King of battles x2, ESL season finals and Asus Rog with Serral participating and he also had 5 years of results before Serral was even relevant winning 2 Starleagues during the Kespa era which had more stacked brackets than anything Serral has ever seen. If you look just at sc2 from 2018 onwards I can see an argument for Serral but sc2 didn't start in 2018.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
Oh, surprise. He didn't compete in GSL, at least he faced them on Korean soil.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
GSL argument is bullshit. Serral has faced them all, time after time, and won them all.
Does the same apply to Maru, and not having won a world championship?
I just pulled the statistics to show that Serral is proved against the Koreans, same as Maru. Just slightly better, cus of their head to head encounters. But as to championships, i still think Serral is ahead. The big ones Serral has won, Maru was in them (world championships, GSL vs The World); The reverse is not true. We cant say if Maru would have the same amount of GSL if Serral had participated in all of them.
But one thing is true, in head to head statistics, there isn't a single player today who can say hes better than Serral. And that aint true for Maru.
Well, he won WESG, DH Last Chance, King of battles x2, ESL season finals and Asus Rog with Serral participating and he also had 5 years of results before Serral was even relevant winning 2 Starleagues during the Kespa era which had more stacked brackets than anything Serral has ever seen. If you look just at sc2 from 2018 onwards I can see an argument for Serral but sc2 didn't start in 2018.
Kespa era was ~90% canon fodder and at the top were always the same names. Just like today and serral beat most of them
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
Oh, surprise. He didn't compete in GSL, at least he faced them on Korean soil.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
GSL argument is bullshit. Serral has faced them all, time after time, and won them all.
Does the same apply to Maru, and not having won a world championship?
I just pulled the statistics to show that Serral is proved against the Koreans, same as Maru. Just slightly better, cus of their head to head encounters. But as to championships, i still think Serral is ahead. The big ones Serral has won, Maru was in them (world championships, GSL vs The World); The reverse is not true. We cant say if Maru would have the same amount of GSL if Serral had participated in all of them.
But one thing is true, in head to head statistics, there isn't a single player today who can say hes better than Serral. And that aint true for Maru.
Well, he won WESG, DH Last Chance, King of battles x2, ESL season finals and Asus Rog with Serral participating and he also had 5 years of results before Serral was even relevant winning 2 Starleagues during the Kespa era which had more stacked brackets than anything Serral has ever seen. If you look just at sc2 from 2018 onwards I can see an argument for Serral but sc2 didn't start in 2018.
I can only see those two fighting for GOAT title. Rogue was way too volatile, and doesnt have the same absurd number of titles like Serral and Maru. MvP was king for a couple of years, and in a period where the skill ceiling was still being tested, i guess. The great ones today are the likes of Maru, Serral, Reynor, Clem... They play the game since 10-12 years old. The scene might not look competitive as it once looked, but in part i think its because to catch the top players, you need, at the very least, some 5-10 years of hard practice (and also be somewhat more naturally skilled than others). Back in 2011-2012, it just wasnt true. Broodwar aint the same game.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
Oh, surprise. He didn't compete in GSL, at least he faced them on Korean soil.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
GSL argument is bullshit. Serral has faced them all, time after time, and won them all.
Does the same apply to Maru, and not having won a world championship?
I just pulled the statistics to show that Serral is proved against the Koreans, same as Maru. Just slightly better, cus of their head to head encounters. But as to championships, i still think Serral is ahead. The big ones Serral has won, Maru was in them (world championships, GSL vs The World); The reverse is not true. We cant say if Maru would have the same amount of GSL if Serral had participated in all of them.
But one thing is true, in head to head statistics, there isn't a single player today who can say hes better than Serral. And that aint true for Maru.
Well, he won WESG, DH Last Chance, King of battles x2, ESL season finals and Asus Rog with Serral participating and he also had 5 years of results before Serral was even relevant winning 2 Starleagues during the Kespa era which had more stacked brackets than anything Serral has ever seen. If you look just at sc2 from 2018 onwards I can see an argument for Serral but sc2 didn't start in 2018.
That's like saying Flash can't be the GOAT in broodwar since it came out in 1998, not 2008.
On July 19 2023 02:12 BreakfastBurrito wrote: Cuz he'd meet the same fate as Special and Astrea
I doubt he would, zerg was super op for a long time so he could have won some GSLs like Rogue, and now that zerg is just slightly stronger the pool isn’t as deep as before. He is also far better than both of them, and even in 2019 when Reynor and Dark were better he still had a shot at the ZvZ
If Serral's peak lined up with one of the historic peaksof Patchzergs I could believe it, however, we will never know because he "doesn't care" enough to try to compete at the actual top level.
All these salty people lining up to defend Serral... when even Serral wont defend Serral, cuz that would mean competing in GSL. Looks like sycophantic comedy to me.
One doesn't become world champion by not beating Koreans. Doesn't need to go on Korean territory to prove it.
EDIT : I don't especially care about who wins or not, I just won't hate on somebody for the sake of it.
Oh, surprise. He didn't compete in GSL, at least he faced them on Korean soil.
Hating on somebody for the sake of it? The video brought up a GOAT discussion, which I don't believe is Serral. But I guess because I don't agree with you, I'm a hater, right? Lol. At least you tried to argue with facts, until your ad hominem anyway.
As for the tourneys you posted, which, for starters, are from 4 and 5 years ago... There was a qualifier and voting component, like for ex. Inno in one of those tourneys was voted in rather than qualifying iirc. And the whole thing is just a few rounds, there's about as much sc2 here as the neutered GSL from a season ago. So I don't discard it, but this doesn't mark Serral as the GOAT to me.
I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Serral plays online (vs offline tourney) much more often than top KR players and beats up on ppl like Elazer all the time for free points, it's inflationary. Like seriously imagine Serral plays every GSL for a year and Maru moves to EU and plays every online cup and no GSL, whose Aligulac will rise and whose will fall?
Lastly, Blizz patched this game tons of times, either their balancing was not competent, or they were giving in to illegitimate pressure from balance whiners. That isn't Serrals's fault at all, but it doesn't do good things for having a GOAT discussion one way or the other, unfortunately
GSL argument is bullshit. Serral has faced them all, time after time, and won them all.
Does the same apply to Maru, and not having won a world championship?
I just pulled the statistics to show that Serral is proved against the Koreans, same as Maru. Just slightly better, cus of their head to head encounters. But as to championships, i still think Serral is ahead. The big ones Serral has won, Maru was in them (world championships, GSL vs The World); The reverse is not true. We cant say if Maru would have the same amount of GSL if Serral had participated in all of them.
But one thing is true, in head to head statistics, there isn't a single player today who can say hes better than Serral. And that aint true for Maru.
Well, he won WESG, DH Last Chance, King of battles x2, ESL season finals and Asus Rog with Serral participating and he also had 5 years of results before Serral was even relevant winning 2 Starleagues during the Kespa era which had more stacked brackets than anything Serral has ever seen. If you look just at sc2 from 2018 onwards I can see an argument for Serral but sc2 didn't start in 2018.
That's like saying Flash can't be the GOAT in broodwar since it came out in 1998, not 2008.
The difference is that Flash dominated broodwar during its competitive peak; Serral kinda dominated (not nearly as hard as Flash) sc2 when the scene had already declined and the number of active championship level players he had to compete against was way lower. And I didn't say Serral can't be the Goat - I said I see Maru's achievements solidly above his, especially considering the 5 years of results he had when Serral wasn't relevant yet, which were during the competitive peak
I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
It's kinda funny that we live in a world where most pros (including Koreans) say Serral is the BEST(I'm using best because this has nothing to do with a goat argument. We're just talking about pure talent and skill) player in the world, but some random forum user thinks he'd get knocked out in the Round of 32 of Code S.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
It's kinda funny that we live in a world where most pros (including Koreans) say Serral is the BEST(I'm using best because this has nothing to do with a goat argument. We're just talking about pure talent and skill) player in the world, but some random forum user thinks he'd get knocked out in the Round of 32 of Code S.
Can you not read? I think he might have even got knocked out of the qualifiers
Not only that, but Koreans are so used to making controversial statements about their opponents right? They'd never be nice just to be nice?
Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
This cant be compared to real sports. And comparing single athletes skill versus the scene as whole is not a good comparison at all. Lets look at 100m sprint, ice-hockey, football, table-tennis, etc.....If you look at those sports for example in 1990-era, or even as close as the start of 2000 century, you are looking completely different games when compared to the situation today. Thats because sports and athletes evolve. If you trained same way as you would have trained in 1998, you would never get to the top. Starcraft is a bit different since it isnt a ""real"" sport, but the scene and gameplay have evolved a lot. Thats just a fact.
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote:
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
Thats not true. Look the answer above. The scene is not evolving as fast as it did before, and the competition isnt as fierce and wide as it was back then, but it still has nothing to do with skill versus todays players.
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: There's also the aspect of balance.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
Training is of course very different now. But is it purely for the worse ? Is the sweat-shop training with 10 people in a little room doing 12h a day better than 4-5h a day with breaks, physical training, mental training etc. ? I dont know. But again, it doesnt affect to the pure skill-level of players of today versus then. Gameplay is ten times better and more skill demanding today.
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
What "external factors" do you mean ? That he has like 70% winrate overall vs. the best koreans ? Or that he is supposed to win every single tournament he goes in or it is deemed as a "failure" to him ? Or that almost every pro player name him one of the greatest players and the milestone to compare to ? Maru is propably number 3 in the Goat discussion.
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
This is the only good argument you actually make. But even that is only partially true. Like you said, game is a lot faster and demanding now than it was before. The micro and even macro were partly terrible at the early years of Starcraft 2. Its not because the rewarding factor alone, it was also because of the general skill level was lower.
On July 21 2023 08:48 NoobSkills wrote:
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
Altough good trolling can cheer up the day, bad ones are just boring and gather up pointless debates because of straight up false "facts" or even just pure lies. Mods, hello ?
On July 21 2023 21:50 Curufinwe Feanor wrote:
Maru wins head to head historically against everyone... but for Serral =)
Serral wins ALL.
GSL argument is bullshit. Serral has faced them all, time after time, and won them all.
This is basically the whole thing in a nutshell. Good job !
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
It's kinda funny that we live in a world where most pros (including Koreans) say Serral is the BEST(I'm using best because this has nothing to do with a goat argument. We're just talking about pure talent and skill) player in the world, but some random forum user thinks he'd get knocked out in the Round of 32 of Code S.
To be fair, the argument being used against Maru has been he never does well outside of KR or in online tournament and people still saying that despite him making multiple Ro4/Final at those events. I know he still need to win a world title in the end and all, but he has been pretty great in the last 2-3 years of SC2, and its not like Serral ALWAYS does well neither. People just like to point out when Serral win a couple events and call him GOAT/ the best player in the world, but stay silent when he doesnt do well (bounced in DH EU by HM after his world title, lost in the group stage of Afreeca Cup last year, lost to Clem/Rogue in multiple events a couple years back...) and act like those things never happen.
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
I like how your last sentence is much more fitting towards Maru than Serral... And you still haven't explained how all these elite koreans, the literal top of the top, could lose to Serral. Like...all of them. Or is the GSL Top 8 of '18 also trash that just got lucky qualifying?
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
I like how your last sentence is much more fitting towards Maru than Serral... And you still haven't explained how all these elite koreans, the literal top of the top, could lose to Serral. Like...all of them. Or is the GSL Top 8 of '18 also trash that just got lucky qualifying?
They both stayed home. One got to battle foreign scrubs who would have done just as well with their monitors off, the other had to face the GSL gauntlet.
I wonder who had to travel further out of their time zone for these weekend events? Katowice has a massive time difference to serrals normal time zone right? I mean a whole hour difference is crazy. But your right in one aspect he did do well after farming the easiest WCS points available and he did secure the global finals against some great players. I do wonder how many points he would have been farmed for though if he participated in the GSL though. We will never know because he "never felt the need to prove himself in KR" read as I knew I'd lose so I didn't go.
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
They were amazing for increasing skill level.
But they were awful in everything else.
Non stop playing in Bad conditions isnt good for increasing the skill level
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
They were amazing for increasing skill level.
But they were awful in everything else.
Non stop playing in Bad conditions isnt good for increasing the skill level
Then why were koreans in the teamhouse era miles above foreigners who were playing in 'superior conditions' and foreigners only catched up once they had the same practice conditions?
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
They were amazing for increasing skill level.
But they were awful in everything else.
Non stop playing in Bad conditions isnt good for increasing the skill level
Then why were koreans in the teamhouse era miles above foreigners who were playing in 'superior conditions' and foreigners only catched up once they had the same practice conditions?
To be fair, korean scene was way ahead of the rest of the world. No surprise that it took some time for others to catch up. Team house -system is just part of the picture.
On July 20 2023 22:11 WombaT wrote: [quote] Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
I like how your last sentence is much more fitting towards Maru than Serral... And you still haven't explained how all these elite koreans, the literal top of the top, could lose to Serral. Like...all of them. Or is the GSL Top 8 of '18 also trash that just got lucky qualifying?
They both stayed home. One got to battle foreign scrubs who would have done just as well with their monitors off, the other had to face the GSL gauntlet.
I wonder who had to travel further out of their time zone for these weekend events? Katowice has a massive time difference to serrals normal time zone right? I mean a whole hour difference is crazy. But your right in one aspect he did do well after farming the easiest WCS points available and he did secure the global finals against some great players. I do wonder how many points he would have been farmed for though if he participated in the GSL though. We will never know because he "never felt the need to prove himself in KR" read as I knew I'd lose so I didn't go.
Damn, I missed all those DreamHacks in '18 that got played out in Finland...btw, flight times from South Korea and Finland to California (Blizzcon) are both around 11h...
But quick question: Did Serrals win '18 destroy your enjoyment of SC2 so much that you left Liquipedia for two years?
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
On July 20 2023 22:11 WombaT wrote: [quote] Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
I like how your last sentence is much more fitting towards Maru than Serral... And you still haven't explained how all these elite koreans, the literal top of the top, could lose to Serral. Like...all of them. Or is the GSL Top 8 of '18 also trash that just got lucky qualifying?
They both stayed home. One got to battle foreign scrubs who would have done just as well with their monitors off, the other had to face the GSL gauntlet.
I wonder who had to travel further out of their time zone for these weekend events? Katowice has a massive time difference to serrals normal time zone right? I mean a whole hour difference is crazy. But your right in one aspect he did do well after farming the easiest WCS points available and he did secure the global finals against some great players. I do wonder how many points he would have been farmed for though if he participated in the GSL though. We will never know because he "never felt the need to prove himself in KR" read as I knew I'd lose so I didn't go.
You make a lot of valid points, that's for certain.
On July 20 2023 21:34 TaKeTV wrote: Imagine thinking Serral would do poorly ANYWHERE. You don't have to be a fan but jesus christ. He is absolutely one of the best players to ever touch the game.
Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
You are delusional. I would want to put it more nicely but I simply cant. There is no putting it nicely. Serral is favored to win a bo7 against anyone in the world. Will he do that 100% of the time? No. Will he win it way above 50% of the time? Yes.
On July 20 2023 22:11 WombaT wrote: [quote] Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
I like how your last sentence is much more fitting towards Maru than Serral... And you still haven't explained how all these elite koreans, the literal top of the top, could lose to Serral. Like...all of them. Or is the GSL Top 8 of '18 also trash that just got lucky qualifying?
They both stayed home. One got to battle foreign scrubs who would have done just as well with their monitors off, the other had to face the GSL gauntlet.
I wonder who had to travel further out of their time zone for these weekend events? Katowice has a massive time difference to serrals normal time zone right? I mean a whole hour difference is crazy. But your right in one aspect he did do well after farming the easiest WCS points available and he did secure the global finals against some great players. I do wonder how many points he would have been farmed for though if he participated in the GSL though. We will never know because he "never felt the need to prove himself in KR" read as I knew I'd lose so I didn't go.
"Never felt the need to prove himself in KR", dosen't sound at all like he though he would lose, you can say anything you want about Serral but the man never think he's going to lose a game of Starcraft.
I think sometime we forget SC2 is a job and not everyone give a shit about "legacy". Serral probably didn't want to go live in Korea because he didn't want to go live in Korea. He would not really have won anymore money in KR than in Europe considering the travel and living expense and would have been away from home for a while.
He's not the first one to chose comfort over a buisness trip. Maru and Dark have shutdown a dozen HSC invite because they can't be bothered to travel, to the point where Take dosen't even reach out to them now.
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
They were amazing for increasing skill level.
But they were awful in everything else.
Non stop playing in Bad conditions isnt good for increasing the skill level
Then why were koreans in the teamhouse era miles above foreigners who were playing in 'superior conditions' and foreigners only catched up once they had the same practice conditions?
They were Miles above coz esport wasnt as established as in asia and they never had the same practice conditions
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
They were amazing for increasing skill level.
But they were awful in everything else.
Non stop playing in Bad conditions isnt good for increasing the skill level
Then why were koreans in the teamhouse era miles above foreigners who were playing in 'superior conditions' and foreigners only catched up once they had the same practice conditions?
They were Miles above coz esport wasnt as established as in asia and they never had the same practice conditions
"teamhouse practice isn't superior"
-"then why did koreans dominate in the teamhouse era"
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
They were amazing for increasing skill level.
But they were awful in everything else.
Non stop playing in Bad conditions isnt good for increasing the skill level
Then why were koreans in the teamhouse era miles above foreigners who were playing in 'superior conditions' and foreigners only catched up once they had the same practice conditions?
They were Miles above coz esport wasnt as established as in asia and they never had the same practice conditions
"teamhouse practice isn't superior"
-"then why did koreans dominate in the teamhouse era"
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
They were amazing for increasing skill level.
But they were awful in everything else.
Non stop playing in Bad conditions isnt good for increasing the skill level
Then why were koreans in the teamhouse era miles above foreigners who were playing in 'superior conditions' and foreigners only catched up once they had the same practice conditions?
They were Miles above coz esport wasnt as established as in asia and they never had the same practice conditions
"teamhouse practice isn't superior"
-"then why did koreans dominate in the teamhouse era"
-"because they had superior practice conditions"
LMAO
Never said practice conditions were superior?
and they never had the same practice conditions
Unless you mean foreigners had superior practice conditions but that doesn't fit with the rest of the sentence
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
Not a chance, really. Recency bias is a thing.
It’s basically incomparable, a ton of extra knowledge and optimisation versus those figuring the game out
Parachute a good semi-pro from now back, or a low tier pro and they probably win a GSL no worries
Thing is, all their edge is knowledge, not raw skill. Next GSL that comes around all this time traveller knowledge is out there, to be absorbed by a bunch of full time progamers
So all it would do is accelerate the understanding of the game for next time round. And I’d certainly fancy an Mvp with knowledge from the future way more than I’d fancy a random GM from the future who’s only edge is having access to future knowledge
On July 20 2023 22:11 WombaT wrote: [quote] Elite Korean progamers any time it comes up in interview ‘Serral is a monster’
I don’t trust everything Korean pros say it interviews, especially Maru still trying to pull the ‘I didn’t expect to get through I’m in bad shape’ after another masterclass but I’ll take their word on that one
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
It's kinda funny that we live in a world where most pros (including Koreans) say Serral is the BEST(I'm using best because this has nothing to do with a goat argument. We're just talking about pure talent and skill) player in the world, but some random forum user thinks he'd get knocked out in the Round of 32 of Code S.
To be fair, the argument being used against Maru has been he never does well outside of KR or in online tournament and people still saying that despite him making multiple Ro4/Final at those events. I know he still need to win a world title in the end and all, but he has been pretty great in the last 2-3 years of SC2, and its not like Serral ALWAYS does well neither. People just like to point out when Serral win a couple events and call him GOAT/ the best player in the world, but stay silent when he doesnt do well (bounced in DH EU by HM after his world title, lost in the group stage of Afreeca Cup last year, lost to Clem/Rogue in multiple events a couple years back...) and act like those things never happen.
Pull the data on the international tourneys that Serral and Maru have both participated since 2018. You'll see that Serral is WAY more consistent.
I wonder how people use the argument of balance in favor of Maru against Serral on the GOAT discussion, since 2018 and Serral's ascension, no Korean zerg has had the same consistency of Serral internationally or Maru, nationaly...
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
They were amazing for increasing skill level.
But they were awful in everything else.
Non stop playing in Bad conditions isnt good for increasing the skill level
Well we have plenty of evidence that teamhouses in SC2, Lol or CSGO produce the best result while pretty much none that they don't, so it's hard to say it's the latter.
I also think we have tend to overdramatize the mythos of Korean teamhouses. I think it was easy to pass the detachment a lot of people in the foreign scene were feeling toward the Koreans and Korean centric-media as a manifestation of the players themself being faceless, jaded, overworked, machine-like etc... Rather than admitting we just didn't know them all that much (me included). So teamhouses turned into a sweat-shop hell, crushing everyone's personality and creativeness.
Was the pay bad for a lot of Kespa/ESF pro? Yeah, but the pay was/is bad for 90% of Starcraft players, and they at least had one.
Was the environment toxic with abusive power relations? There are certainly plenty of examples of it, so clearly there were some big problems, but we also have a lot of pro saying it was the best time of their life, some people made great friendships through it and there are many video/story of teahouse where they did various activity outside of SC.
Did they practice too much? Well, they practiced a lot in some teamhouse (although plenty of foreigners also played a shitload of Starcraft), but they also were there to become the best Starcraft player they could, which does entail plenty of sacrifice and risk if you don't try it. We can argue if, for example, trying to become an Olympian gymnast is really an healthy and worthwhile life, but there's certainly some merit in trying to live that dream and dedicating your youth to it.
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
It's kinda funny that we live in a world where most pros (including Koreans) say Serral is the BEST(I'm using best because this has nothing to do with a goat argument. We're just talking about pure talent and skill) player in the world, but some random forum user thinks he'd get knocked out in the Round of 32 of Code S.
To be fair, the argument being used against Maru has been he never does well outside of KR or in online tournament and people still saying that despite him making multiple Ro4/Final at those events. I know he still need to win a world title in the end and all, but he has been pretty great in the last 2-3 years of SC2, and its not like Serral ALWAYS does well neither. People just like to point out when Serral win a couple events and call him GOAT/ the best player in the world, but stay silent when he doesnt do well (bounced in DH EU by HM after his world title, lost in the group stage of Afreeca Cup last year, lost to Clem/Rogue in multiple events a couple years back...) and act like those things never happen.
Pull the data on the international tourneys that Serral and Maru have both participated since 2018. You'll see that Serral is WAY more consistent.
WESG 2018 - Maru wins, Serral 3rd Katowice 18 - tied top 4 GSL vs the World 18 - Maru top 8, Serral wins Blizzcon - Maru top 8, Serral wins Katowice 19 - Maru top 16, Serral top 8 WESG 19 - Maru 3rd, Serral 2nd GSL vs the World 19 - Maru top 16, Serral wins Blizzcon 19 - Maru top 8, Serral top 4 Katowice 2020 - Maru top 4, Serral top 4 DH summer 20 - Maru top 8, Serral win KoB 20 - Maru wins, Serral top 8 DH winter 20 - Serral wins, Maru top 16 TSL 6 - Maru 4th, Serral 2nd Katowice 2021 - Maru top 4, Serral top 12 Asus ROG 21 - Maru win, Serral top 8 DH winter 21 - Maru win, Serral top 8 KoB 21 - Maru win, Serral 2nd TSL8 - Maru top 12, Serral 2nd DH last chance 22 - Maru win, Serral top 12 Katowice 22 - Maru top 8, Serral win KoB 22 - Maru top 4, Serral 2nd TSL9 - Maru 2nd, Serral wins DH Atlanta 22 - tied top 4 Katowice 23 - Maru 2nd, Serral top 8 Pigsty 23 - Maru 2nd, Serral top 8 DH summer 23 - Maru top 12, Serral wins
I believe that's literally everything that has had both of them in it. Maru's average placement is 6th (5.8). Serral's average placement is 4th (4.2). Serral is noticeably more consistent in those events but I don't think that's anywhere near a big enough difference to makeup for Maru's 2013-2017 results and his dominance in his much harder home region.
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
To deny HOTS was the highest skill level the pro scene has ever displayed is pure unadulterated cope.
I don’t think Chai was being serious at all with that point
HoTS was undoubtedly a much more competitive era, more skilled though?
Don’t think so, although in a parallel reality where the scene remained in its prior structure I think we’d likely see that be even more skilled
Flash said something pretty similar on post Kespa BW, that in ways the skill is higher thru greater knowledge and people playing for additional years, but that the rate of improvement is likely slower than what it would have been.
Maru has basically the entire Terran package, obscene micro and macro and can play hyper aggressive or incredibly defensively in a way no Terran could of that time. Serral is similarly basically the complete Zerg player
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
To deny HOTS was the highest skill level the pro scene has ever displayed is pure unadulterated cope.
I don’t think Chai was being serious at all with that point
HoTS was undoubtedly a much more competitive era, more skilled though?
Don’t think so, although in a parallel reality where the scene remained in its prior structure I think we’d likely see that be even more skilled
Flash said something pretty similar on post Kespa BW, that in ways the skill is higher thru greater knowledge and people playing for additional years, but that the rate of improvement is likely slower than what it would have been.
Maru has basically the entire Terran package, obscene micro and macro and can play hyper aggressive or incredibly defensively in a way no Terran could of that time. Serral is similarly basically the complete Zerg player
Maru's and Serral's play right now is definitely among the best we've ever seen but the gap between them and the rest of the playing field has also grown quite large, and I'm not sure we can say the general playing field has gotten better. Someone like Dark for example was imo playing better and more solid 3-4 years ago.
Similar to other players like Inno, soO or Zest, who had noticably declined in their last years before military
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
To deny HOTS was the highest skill level the pro scene has ever displayed is pure unadulterated cope.
I don’t think Chai was being serious at all with that point
HoTS was undoubtedly a much more competitive era, more skilled though?
Don’t think so, although in a parallel reality where the scene remained in its prior structure I think we’d likely see that be even more skilled
Flash said something pretty similar on post Kespa BW, that in ways the skill is higher thru greater knowledge and people playing for additional years, but that the rate of improvement is likely slower than what it would have been.
Maru has basically the entire Terran package, obscene micro and macro and can play hyper aggressive or incredibly defensively in a way no Terran could of that time. Serral is similarly basically the complete Zerg player
I do think both Maru and Serral on their A-game are close to perfection at least if you consider human capability. At a certain point it becomes impossible for human action to improve mechanically. You can always have a slightly more perfect game but if I remember some of the ASUS ROG games of Maru he dominated fights that were impossible to win without the opponent making crucial mistakes.
Knowledge can always improve and decisions are key with incomplete information but in terms of raw mechanical skill I dont see an improvement on Maru/Serral. Improvement only in the aspect of consistency where Serral IMO outshines Maru. He does have better and worse performance as well but when he loses he rarely loses disappointingly while any Maru fan can attest to how frustrating it can be to be Maru fan.
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
To deny HOTS was the highest skill level the pro scene has ever displayed is pure unadulterated cope.
I don’t think Chai was being serious at all with that point
HoTS was undoubtedly a much more competitive era, more skilled though?
Don’t think so, although in a parallel reality where the scene remained in its prior structure I think we’d likely see that be even more skilled
Flash said something pretty similar on post Kespa BW, that in ways the skill is higher thru greater knowledge and people playing for additional years, but that the rate of improvement is likely slower than what it would have been.
Maru has basically the entire Terran package, obscene micro and macro and can play hyper aggressive or incredibly defensively in a way no Terran could of that time. Serral is similarly basically the complete Zerg player
Maru's and Serral's play right now is definitely among the best we've ever seen but the gap between them and the rest of the playing field has also grown quite large, and I'm not sure we can say the general playing field has gotten better. Someone like Dark for example was imo playing better and more solid 3-4 years ago.
Similar to other players like Inno, soO or Zest, who had noticably declined in their last years before military
Therein comes the depth, which is definitely more shallow at the tip top end for sure.
The Korean scene lost a capacity to blood new talent so you’re relying on veterans to keep motivation for years, and at current stage not just that but come back from military service and still have that drive. Dark’s still bloody good, and IMO consistently underrated in GOAT rankings but you can even see it with him, and he’s still motivated enough to be excellent. Inno, Zest you could visibly see them play worse and worse
Conversely I think the foreign scene did find a model that actually worked and is clearly better than it used to be.
It’s just also clearly not better enough to fill the talent void that is now versus peak Kespa teams + the top esF guys like Taeja that we used to have
Claims like "A diamond player today would stomp pro players of the past" are exactly the kind of thing that is just so wrong in so many levels I can't understand how people come to that conclussion.
I'm a diamond player. I suck. I play like 5-6 hours a week. I sometimes forget to research warpgate, stim and ling speed. I fall behind in my build all the time, I miss drops, I a click. I'm a noob.
In HotS I was a gold lvl player. Now I'm Diamond, sometimes Diamond 3, sometimes 2, sometimes 1. But I suck. I would never beat Mvp, or Life or even Fruitdealer.
People say that people in team houses just played 12 hours a day. That's not the case. They had coaches, sometimes multiples. They checked replays, the practiced spefici strats, they practiced specific strats vs specific players. They practiced how to prepare for a "best of" series of multiple games and how to approach them. It wasn't just mindless grinding of games.
And again, the only reason I can think of why people say pros in the past were bad is because they don't understand that the game hadn't been figured out yet, or some thing simply weren't possible. But that doesn't mean they were bad.
Again, things like creep spread. Queens used to suck, there was no reason to make multiple of them, then they buffed them so people started making more, that lead to better creep spread, which also was later buffed. Marine micro was possible, just not discovered, until MKP started doing it. Siege tanks literally doubled in damage from HotS to LotV, that changed their viability a lot. Maps became bigger and better designed, favoring macro instead of shitty cheeses, which were also nerfed (like 4 gate). Remember that the blink all ins in HotS were a great display of micro. Before that it's not that pros lacked the micro, it's that they hadn't discovered that.
There are definitely things that became harder, particularly with lotv making the game faster, or the introduction of things like widow mines that could wipe armies and mineral lines if you didn't pay attention. At the same time other things became easier, like defending (creep spread, overlord speed and scouts, shield batteries and mothership core).
I agree with the theory that if a scene continues to develop uninterrupted, then yeah the level of play becomes higher and higher. But that didn't happened with sc2. Teams left, sponsors left, tournaments dissappeared. In the HotS and WoL era we had basically tournaments every weekend. There were so many high level competitions it even became a problem and tournament organizers had to make a deal between themselves to not have tournaments at the same time. The level of competition went down, the practice structures went down, you can definitely become worse over time at something. Even pros will tell you that you can play 1000 hours but if you aren't practicing with a purpose the correct stuff you will not improve. this is the same, but in a macro scale. The scene imploded. Pros still have a lot of knowledge they aquired over the years on how to practice, but do they still have the discipline? The support structure around them? No.
On July 23 2023 06:08 [Phantom] wrote: Claims like "A diamond player today would stomp pro players of the past" are exactly the kind of thing that is just so wrong in so many levels I can't understand how people come to that conclussion.
I'm a diamond player. I suck. I play like 5-6 hours a week. I sometimes forget to research warpgate, stim and ling speed. I fall behind in my build all the time, I miss drops, I a click. I'm a noob.
In HotS I was a gold lvl player. Now I'm Diamond, sometimes Diamond 3, sometimes 2, sometimes 1. But I suck. I would never beat Mvp, or Life or even Fruitdealer.
People say that people in team houses just played 12 hours a day. That's not the case. They had coaches, sometimes multiples. They checked replays, the practiced spefici strats, they practiced specific strats vs specific players. They practiced how to prepare for a "best of" series of multiple games and how to approach them. It wasn't just mindless grinding of games.
And again, the only reason I can think of why people say pros in the past were bad is because they don't understand that the game hadn't been figured out yet, or some thing simply weren't possible. But that doesn't mean they were bad.
Again, things like creep spread. Queens used to suck, there was no reason to make multiple of them, then they buffed them so people started making more, that lead to better creep spread, which also was later buffed. Marine micro was possible, just not discovered, until MKP started doing it. Siege tanks literally doubled in damage from HotS to LotV, that changed their viability a lot. Maps became bigger and better designed, favoring macro instead of shitty cheeses, which were also nerfed (like 4 gate). Remember that the blink all ins in HotS were a great display of micro. Before that it's not that pros lacked the micro, it's that they hadn't discovered that.
There are definitely things that became harder, particularly with lotv making the game faster, or the introduction of things like widow mines that could wipe armies and mineral lines if you didn't pay attention. At the same time other things became easier, like defending (creep spread, overlord speed and scouts, shield batteries and mothership core).
I agree with the theory that if a scene continues to develop uninterrupted, then yeah the level of play becomes higher and higher. But that didn't happened with sc2. Teams left, sponsors left, tournaments dissappeared. In the HotS and WoL era we had basically tournaments every weekend. There were so many high level competitions it even became a problem and tournament organizers had to make a deal between themselves to not have tournaments at the same time. The level of competition went down, the practice structures went down, you can definitely become worse over time at something. Even pros will tell you that you can play 1000 hours but if you aren't practicing with a purpose the correct stuff you will not improve. this is the same, but in a macro scale. The scene imploded. Pros still have a lot of knowledge they aquired over the years on how to practice, but do they still have the discipline? The support structure around them? No.
It’s interesting you mention creep spread because that’s probably one area foreigners sharing knowledge and optimising things had them ahead of the curve. Maybe Scarlett as an overall player didn’t hit those heights but she always had obscene creep spread and you see that with a Serral or a Reynor
We have to remember that a lot of knowledge stayed in-house at the real peak of the Kespa era, compared to a much more open foreign scene
Without knowing what went on within certain walls that system seemed to produce great talent but have diminishing returns as well. Most B teamers tend to remain B-teamers for example. If the system was that great you’d see more upward promotion
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
KesPa arriving, KeSPA leaving, blizzard pulling suppport, pro gamers retiring, pro gamers getting old etc, the game losing popularity to LoL etc.
And then just see other athletes in real sports, they don't just get better and better. They have slumps, sometimes they start playing worse only to play better a year later, then they start getting old and declining.
And more improtantly the scene has also declined. Less people playing means less competition means less skill.
There's also the aspect of balance.
Then there's the aspect of team houses and practice culture. That was a big part of Koreans edge, and then Kespa left and everything went to shit. Koreans also started joining foreigner teams that would give them more money and more relaxed schedules, and they slowly deteriorated.
You can't say, don't even try to say it, that koreans are better now with their shitty training schedule than they were in Kespa teeam houses with 1 head coach, 3 extra dedicated jr coaches and rigid and well constructed practice schedules.
I'm sorry, but there is no way Serral would have won as much as he did if Koreans still had Kespa style team houses. And funnily enough Serral rise came alongside the rise of Zerg as the strongest race.
That being said, Maru being the best is kind of revisionist as well. The only reason people say he is the best is because he has been the most consistent player we've had, and he was indeed the best for a short period. But for most of his time playing (you can verify this by looking at the of TL power rankings) he was highly regarded but never the best.
Maru played when Nestea, MC, MMA and MVP were considered the best. Maru played when Life was the best. Maru played when sOs was the best. Maru played when Innovation was the best. But Maru was never the best in those times. It's only when we look back and noticed just how dam consistent the guy has been through his career, certainly the most consistent top player of all time, and when of course he won his OSL and the GSLs and he has the best in that perioid, when we retroactively say he is the best.
Overall, I think Maru has the more impressive career, so if there is a GOAT it should be him, as Serral had too many external factors go his way (while being an excelent player himself of course).
But honestly I think sc2 doesn't have a GOAT.
BW can have a GOAT because it was the same game for 10 years. Starcraft 2 has had 2 expantions and tons of balance changes, it's a really different game from 10 years ago. BW has evolved of course, but there hasn't been any massive balance or design changes.
In terms of design and gameplay, current legacy of the void might as well be sc3 compared to early WoL.
I guess that's why some people say that players were worse in WoL or HotS. They go back and see "oh look at that terrible creep spread" but they don't realize creep has been buffed A LOT over the years, and queens themselves were buffed as well, improving transfuse, increasing their range etc. If they didn't spread creep as much as current pros is not because they couldn't mechanically do it, it's because it was as rewarding as it's now. Same thing with using ghost or micro like warp prism micro was much harder back then because warp prism pickup didn't have that big range it has now.
Lil bro really thinks teamhouses back then were good for the players. Classic delusional phantom
They were amazing for increasing skill level.
But they were awful in everything else.
Non stop playing in Bad conditions isnt good for increasing the skill level
Yeah sorry but you're wrong. Mechanically the talent pool was deeper and more solid during KESPA era. The meta wasn't the same, but the players played their meta to perfection better.
I don't think KESPA nor most of the teams were good entities, but the players were better in that era.
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
I watched those GSLs, from FruitDealer to basically every GSL in WoL. Randoms GM of today are bad (not the pros, but like top 50 to top 200 GM EU). WoL is not the same game and they don’t know nor remember WoL very well so they would have no knowledge and would probably lose to creative / smart players of back then. Mechanics wise it’s not the same game, you don’t have 12 workers start with A LOT of QoL changes that make macro easier, so those random GM would not even have better mechanics than random KR. They might get a top 8, but it’s highly unlikely they would do better.
Again, I am not talking about current pros. But the gap between pros and lower tier players is gigantic. For example, try to watch the lower level tournaments with terrans such as Kas, BabyMarine, etc. And notice the huge difference with the top EU terrans. Then now realize that top 50 to top 200 EU GM players are even worse than the likes of Kas and BabyMarine.
Oh Korean progamers saying a nice generic compliment about a foreign player?
Not even to say that he wasn't good, but his achievements were weekend tournaments and beating up weak players in foreign tournaments. His seeding almost always had him facing more foreigners until he suddenly popped into the finals. Just lucky seeding though I guess, because Acti-Blizz would never rig an event to secure larger viewership.
He still won at the end of the day, but would he have if he was in the GSL? I don't think so not in the slightest. For sure he would have been studied and dissected and sniped out of every GSL, probably not early on because he was more talented than the bottom tier of GSL players, but 3 rounds of facing opponents with the skill to match and who have prepared very well to counter his typical strategies? Perhaps he still eventually snipes out a GSL, but then he isn't cruising through all those foreign WCS events and probably still picks up the same amount of weekend tournaments. So then where is he at? Well he is on the list of top 20.
What’s to dissect?
Players have had plenty of time
He’s got a winning record against basically every notable player on the planet, including Maru who for my money is probably the GOAT. Note I don’t think this makes him better necessarily
He doesn’t have some gimmick, he’s just rock fucking solid and generally wins.
Everyone knows how Serral likes to play ideally, he’s been stomping for years now.
We'll never know becuase he didn't actually play in the GSL.
He played the the foreign version and beat up weak players to obtain points and preferential seeding into the tournament. Then somehow his bracket usually had him facing those same weaker players, in a weekend marathon event.
Not that I can blame him, if the money is just as good to face easier opponents then you should probably just do that, but that doesn't get you into the goat debate, just keeps you bank account full.
In 2018 Serral won blizzcon by beating sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, and Stats. In 2022 Serral had to beat Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Maru to win Katowice (every other serious title contender.)
Arguing must be fun when you just make things up.
2018 - Look at the particpants overall. Won some ZvZ's and got to face stats in the finals. 2022 again look who was there. Picks 2 tournaments over 4 years to make their point. Can we look at the talent pool he had to face in the WCS to get the invite to those tournaments? It's full of actual contenders, right? Oh and you say the qualifiers were region based, so a weak region can get a bunch of fluff to be invited?
I'm sure you'd dominate your local middle school's basketball team too, and I'm simply shocked nobody compares you to MJ.
Serral won the most important tournament in 2018 by beating only koreans (mind you: Only the Top 8 koreans of that year were present). He won against against the #3, #4, #6, #7 and #8 seed, so only missing #1, #2, and #5. Number 1 (Maru) was bombed out by the korean 8th seed sOs 3-0 (Serral won 2-0 against sOs), and Number 2 (Classic) didn't even make it out of groups, losing to SpeCial. Serral did all that while only losing 3 maps, even though he had to play two of the three best Zergs in Korea of all time and ZvZ is widely considered his "worst" matchup.
I know you are trolling, but can't you try atleast a little bit harder?
How did he get invites into these tournaments? Oh he had to go through the deep foreign player pool and stack points. How did the koreans have to get there? Oh by knocking out other top talent in the world. ZvZ was not considered his worst matchup at the time lol. But crazily enough he did manage to completely dodge the qualifiers for the GSL and the GSL itself, no free wins in that setup, but hey at least he farmed WCS points off some noobs.
And I get it financially it makes zero sense to go get booted out in the qualifiers or RO32 when you can farm an easy first place facing lesser players and then get preferential seeding into other events based off those easy wins. Especially when the prize pools are basically the same, and you get to stay local, and play in front of an audience that knows you.
I like how your last sentence is much more fitting towards Maru than Serral... And you still haven't explained how all these elite koreans, the literal top of the top, could lose to Serral. Like...all of them. Or is the GSL Top 8 of '18 also trash that just got lucky qualifying?
They both stayed home. One got to battle foreign scrubs who would have done just as well with their monitors off, the other had to face the GSL gauntlet.
I wonder who had to travel further out of their time zone for these weekend events? Katowice has a massive time difference to serrals normal time zone right? I mean a whole hour difference is crazy. But your right in one aspect he did do well after farming the easiest WCS points available and he did secure the global finals against some great players. I do wonder how many points he would have been farmed for though if he participated in the GSL though. We will never know because he "never felt the need to prove himself in KR" read as I knew I'd lose so I didn't go.
Damn, I missed all those DreamHacks in '18 that got played out in Finland...btw, flight times from South Korea and Finland to California (Blizzcon) are both around 11h...
But quick question: Did Serrals win '18 destroy your enjoyment of SC2 so much that you left Liquipedia for two years?
Ohhh we're selecting the one foreign event that took him out of his time zone for a weekend tournament and pretending it was the norm? Not the short flight he has from most tournaments? He literally could have flown home and slept in his bed on a daily basis.
Yes though you are right the blizzcon events were a struggle for both players as I noted perviously. I'm glad you decided to make that point again for me. Remind me who farmed the easier WCS points though to seed into that tournament?
But an even quicker question: Does my pointing out that serral had home "international" events to attend and an easy AF WCS point farming system in place tilt you so much that you looked at my post history?
BTW I'm not even so invested in SC2, just like it is funny yall want to make someone who farmed free WCS points and played in his backyard is the GOAT. Perhaps we will have the Harlem Globetrotters play in middle school basketball leagues across the world and one of them can become the goat of basketball?
On July 23 2023 01:39 Curufinwe Feanor wrote: I wonder how people use the argument of balance in favor of Maru against Serral on the GOAT discussion, since 2018 and Serral's ascension, no Korean zerg has had the same consistency of Serral internationally or Maru, nationaly...
Please someone enlighten me.
Don’t overthink it
It’s the Maru fanboy / Serral haters agenda
Serral surpassed Maru in 2019 in terms of GOAT talks
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
I watched those GSLs, from FruitDealer to basically every GSL in WoL. Randoms GM of today are bad (not the pros, but like top 50 to top 200 GM EU). WoL is not the same game and they don’t know nor remember WoL very well so they would have no knowledge and would probably lose to creative / smart players of back then. Mechanics wise it’s not the same game, you don’t have 12 workers start with A LOT of QoL changes that make macro easier, so those random GM would not even have better mechanics than random KR. They might get a top 8, but it’s highly unlikely they would do better.
Again, I am not talking about current pros. But the gap between pros and lower tier players is gigantic. For example, try to watch the lower level tournaments with terrans such as Kas, BabyMarine, etc. And notice the huge difference with the top EU terrans. Then now realize that top 50 to top 200 EU GM players are even worse than the likes of Kas and BabyMarine.
It’s been 13 years or w/e, which is a long time
Again to stress whichever person we send back in time, naked, Arnie style will get one tournament of their excess knowledge to crack, before their only advantage in knowledge is revealed
Considering we skip the first few GSL/GSL equivalents so the map pool gets slightly less trash, something vaguely sensible
Having a full stable, mapped out build from a slightly more mature era will give you a huge edge. Like a gigantic one until your trick is figured out
It took Toss for example a long time to even use warp prisms much (thanks Liquid HerO) in ANY capacity never mind using them to shield Templars from EMPs and other such funkiness
Plus modern(ish) minor optimisations like rapid fire for warpins and stuff
Remember Creator’s whole initial ascent was on the back of a sick double forge build PvT style. I should remember as it’s the only build I’ve ever stolen and nailed from 80/90 supply on
Now take that WoL era build and fast forward it a year or two in the meta with our time traveller, mix in some Liquid HerO prisms and zealots running everywhere and that’s way beyond the development of early WoL. Also crazy fucking tanky harass zealots as you could hit 2/2 as a T’s 1/0 was live
This isn’t to denigrate people from that era, it’s just 13 years of accumulated knowledge goes a long, long way.
Indeed in my GOAT considerations I frequently rate innovators and people who first figured stuff out for this very reason
On July 23 2023 01:39 Curufinwe Feanor wrote: I wonder how people use the argument of balance in favor of Maru against Serral on the GOAT discussion, since 2018 and Serral's ascension, no Korean zerg has had the same consistency of Serral internationally or Maru, nationaly...
Please someone enlighten me.
Don’t overthink it
It’s the Maru fanboy / Serral haters agenda
Serral surpassed Maru in 2019 in terms of GOAT talks
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
I watched those GSLs, from FruitDealer to basically every GSL in WoL. Randoms GM of today are bad (not the pros, but like top 50 to top 200 GM EU). WoL is not the same game and they don’t know nor remember WoL very well so they would have no knowledge and would probably lose to creative / smart players of back then. Mechanics wise it’s not the same game, you don’t have 12 workers start with A LOT of QoL changes that make macro easier, so those random GM would not even have better mechanics than random KR. They might get a top 8, but it’s highly unlikely they would do better.
Again, I am not talking about current pros. But the gap between pros and lower tier players is gigantic. For example, try to watch the lower level tournaments with terrans such as Kas, BabyMarine, etc. And notice the huge difference with the top EU terrans. Then now realize that top 50 to top 200 EU GM players are even worse than the likes of Kas and BabyMarine.
watch those GSLs again. if you truly believe that 2010 GSL skill > 2023 low / mid GM skill, then your memory is awful
who's to say that they don't remember WoL very well? I remember WoL perfectly well because I played it a lot. I still have to remind myself that the first supply depot is built on 14/15 and not 10/11. in my head, a barracks will always be built on 12 supply (or 11/11 if you are Mvp :-)). I remember vividly a minor detail in HotS: after the first depot is built, there was some delay before you had 150 minerals to build a barracks. however, if you delay the 12th SCV, you can afford the barracks immediately. this allowed you to get 3 reapers and the timings lined up such that the factory / reactor was built in perfect sync. on the other hand, if you built the barracks at a normal time and did not delay the SCV, you could only make 2 reapers before reactor. people remember stuff like this. I'm sure that nobody who remembers WoL would be surprised by a thor drop on Lost Temple
take a high master / low GM who has played since WoL, who still remembers the 6-worker start, and who remembers the 2010 metagame. send them back in time and that player will win GSL 2010 easily. they would probably win 2 GSLs in a row before the koreans have caught up enough in skill. GSL RO64 2010 is diamond league today. yes, diamond league. and if you don't believe me, please... go back and watch the VODs lol. they're all on youtube. even Maru looked diamond league in 2010. if you have a current GM player who practices all aspects of play (and not just cannon rushing every game), they will wipe the floor with koreans in 2010. if you went back in 2010 and focus-fired speed banelings, people would think you are using hacks, or that you are a literal god. go back and watch the crowd reaction when MKP first split his marines against banes, then be reminded that even a modern-day platinum player can execute the same tricks.
On July 23 2023 01:39 Curufinwe Feanor wrote: I wonder how people use the argument of balance in favor of Maru against Serral on the GOAT discussion, since 2018 and Serral's ascension, no Korean zerg has had the same consistency of Serral internationally or Maru, nationaly...
Please someone enlighten me.
Don’t overthink it
It’s the Maru fanboy / Serral haters agenda
Serral surpassed Maru in 2019 in terms of GOAT talks
Right now Serral is just over lapping the field
Do you ever post anything remotely sensible?
My pet theory is that it's some sort of performance art. Nothing else can explain someone making posts that are so consistently bad for so long.
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
But see these is just the type of things I mean when I say people miss remember early sc2 or ignore the context.
Yes, people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand. All maps now let you fast expand and close up the ramp with buildings if needed, go take a look at Xel Naga caverns or metalopolis or steppes of war and tell me you could fast expand there. Also, bases literally had more minerals and gas than they do currently so there was less of a rush to expand.
For example with protoss, you couldn't dream to expand fast or you'd die to a 6 pool (not 12 pool, 6 pool). Or they could get into your base because some bases had 2 entrances, or one blocked by destructible rocks. Then some better maps were released and you could fast expand using your nexus as part of the wall, but why bother when you could 4 gate and win? and then some other maps were released with areas where you could block the naturals entrance, and thats when people started using FFE. And then later with the adepts and change to 12 workers economy it's when finally you could gate expand. It's not that players before weren't good enough to open in the lowground, it's because it was suicide.
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
That is true, but again, it's not that players back then weren't skilled enough to use them, it's because the game hadn't been figured out as much as it's now, and there were patches monthy or every couple of months that changed the game and oppened new strategies. It was not a matter of players not being good enough.
So I'll grant that we have more knowledge about the game now, but that doesn't mean more skill. And like poppi points out, a lot of that knowledge wouldn't work back then.
Sure, go back to wol and host and do a tank pressure with liberators and marines. O wait, liberators don't exist, tanks deal half the damage, and immortals have hardened shields. Ok then do this other all in cause you know protoss is vulnerable, oh shit Nexus overcharge with 15 range atacking you and defending the all in. Ok go and do that roach all in, o wait you just got zoned out with 10 forcefields and immortals with hardened shields are wrecking your stuff. Or hell, someone went up your ramp and put a forcefield on the ramp and you can't get there.
There also weren't QOL things like select all army hotkey, or select all idle workers.
On July 23 2023 08:39 WombaT wrote:
It took Toss for example a long time to even use warp prisms much (thanks Liquid HerO) in ANY capacity never mind using them to shield Templars from EMPs and other such funkiness
Here is another example. I understand where youre coming from, "if they were that good, why didn't they do that?" But the answer is not because they weren't good. It's because they didn't have to.
Why would people waste valuable robo time making warp prism, when you could build Colossus that dealt more damage than they do now instead of just vs light like they do now, to make a warp prism, when you can simply put a proxy pylon and fast warp in?
The warp prism is only a requirement now because they nerfed fast warp ins anywhere on the map and they buffed it's pick up range.
Or why didn't they use them to protect HT from Ghost EMP? Becase they didn't need to. Khaydarin amulet exist, a ghost EMPd your templars? Morph them into an archon and instantly warp in more HT in 5 seconds that will be able to cast storm. And then after Khaydarym amulet was removed, you could always spread the HT. Also Feedback range was buffed so you could feedback ghost as well, and at the time feedback insta killed units if they had enough energy. And again, the warp prism wasn't as much of a requirement as it's today.
I feel people underestimate how much the game changed. We have more workers, less minerals per base, more qol changes, probably at least 100 patches of blizzard buffing the infestor, nerfing it buffing the hellions, nerfing them, buffing the queens, buffing charge so it always hit, buffing it so it dealt damage on hit, removing the damage on hit but increasing zealots base speed, adding muta regen, introducing the ravager to destroy forcefields, shield batteries, mothership core, the rework of the carrier (remember when it was a meme unit that used to take 120 seconds to build one? now it takes 64, no wonder they are more used now).
There is so much things it was possible to do back then, and so much things that weren't possible, just with balance and map changes alone, that you can't possiby say they played worse. They played the way they did cause it was a different game back then. I do think skill increased from start of wol to the end of it, and from start of hots to the fall of kespa. But after that? I'm not sure.
And that's also why I cannot say there is a sc2 GOAT. LotV might as well be starcraft 3 compared to WoL.
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
But see these is just the type of things I mean when I say people miss remember early sc2 or ignore the context.
Yes, people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand. All maps now let you fast expand and close up the ramp with buildings if needed, go take a look at Xel Naga caverns or metalopolis or steppes of war and tell me you could fast expand there. Also, bases literally had more minerals and gas than they do currently so there was less of a rush to expand.
For example with protoss, you couldn't dream to expand fast or you'd die to a 6 pool (not 12 pool, 6 pool). Or they could get into your base because some bases had 2 entrances, or one blocked by destructible rocks. Then some better maps were released and you could fast expand using your nexus as part of the wall, but why bother when you could 4 gate and win? and then some other maps were released with areas where you could block the naturals entrance, and thats when people started using FFE. And then later with the adepts and change to 12 workers economy it's when finally you could gate expand. It's not that players before weren't good enough to open in the lowground, it's because it was suicide.
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
That is true, but again, it's not that players back then weren't skilled enough to use them, it's because the game hadn't been figured out as much as it's now, and there were patches monthy or every couple of months that changed the game and oppened new strategies. It was not a matter of players not being good enough.
So I'll grant that we have more knowledge about the game now, but that doesn't mean more skill. And like poppi points out, a lot of that knowledge wouldn't work back then.
Sure, go back to wol and host and do a tank pressure with liberators and marines. O wait, liberators don't exist, tanks deal half the damage, and immortals have hardened shields. Ok then do this other all in cause you know protoss is vulnerable, oh shit Nexus overcharge with 15 range atacking you and defending the all in. Ok go and do that roach all in, o wait you just got zoned out with 10 forcefields and immortals with hardened shields are wrecking your stuff. Or hell, someone went up your ramp and put a forcefield on the ramp and you can't get there.
There also weren't QOL things like select all army hotkey, or select all idle workers.
It took Toss for example a long time to even use warp prisms much (thanks Liquid HerO) in ANY capacity never mind using them to shield Templars from EMPs and other such funkiness
Here is another example. I understand where youre coming from, "if they were that good, why didn't they do that?" But the answer is not because they weren't good. It's because they didn't have to.
Why would people waste valuable robo time making warp prism, when you could build Colossus that dealt more damage than they do now instead of just vs light like they do now, to make a warp prism, when you can simply put a proxy pylon and fast warp in?
The warp prism is only a requirement now because they nerfed fast warp ins anywhere on the map and they buffed it's pick up range.
Or why didn't they use them to protect HT from Ghost EMP? Becase they didn't need to. Khaydarin amulet exist, a ghost EMPd your templars? Morph them into an archon and instantly warp in more HT in 5 seconds that will be able to cast storm. And then after Khaydarym amulet was removed, you could always spread the HT. Also Feedback range was buffed so you could feedback ghost as well, and at the time feedback insta killed units if they had enough energy. And again, the warp prism wasn't as much of a requirement as it's today.
I feel people underestimate how much the game changed. We have more workers, less minerals per base, more qol changes, probably at least 100 patches of blizzard buffing the infestor, nerfing it buffing the hellions, nerfing them, buffing the queens, buffing charge so it always hit, buffing it so it dealt damage on hit, removing the damage on hit but increasing zealots base speed, adding muta regen, introducing the ravager to destroy forcefields, shield batteries, mothership core, the rework of the carrier (remember when it was a meme unit that used to take 120 seconds to build one? now it takes 64, no wonder they are more used now).
There is so much things it was possible to do back then, and so much things that weren't possible, just with balance and map changes alone, that you can't possiby say they played worse. They played the way they did cause it was a different game back then. I do think skill increased from start of wol to the end of it, and from start of hots to the fall of kespa. But after that? I'm not sure.
And that's also why I cannot say there is a sc2 GOAT. LotV might as well be starcraft 3 compared to WoL.
Well yeah which was was I was couching examples in things that were latter day WoL staples, i.e. Creator’s dual forge PvT or Liquid HerO’s liberal use of prisms
Although they feel quite far along in WoL terms you’re still talking the first couple of years of SC2
Stuff you could conceivably just introduce but earlier than it was done, plus with other modern knowledge
Or just mechanical stuff. MKP’s splits vs Kyrix initially were mind blowing stuff at the time but but your average decent Terran GM is likely way outdoing that these days
Agreed 100% that trying to crown an overall SC2 GOAT starts to get pointless across such a massively changing game
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
But see these is just the type of things I mean when I say people miss remember early sc2 or ignore the context.
Yes, people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand. All maps now let you fast expand and close up the ramp with buildings if needed, go take a look at Xel Naga caverns or metalopolis or steppes of war and tell me you could fast expand there. Also, bases literally had more minerals and gas than they do currently so there was less of a rush to expand.
For example with protoss, you couldn't dream to expand fast or you'd die to a 6 pool (not 12 pool, 6 pool). Or they could get into your base because some bases had 2 entrances, or one blocked by destructible rocks. Then some better maps were released and you could fast expand using your nexus as part of the wall, but why bother when you could 4 gate and win? and then some other maps were released with areas where you could block the naturals entrance, and thats when people started using FFE. And then later with the adepts and change to 12 workers economy it's when finally you could gate expand. It's not that players before weren't good enough to open in the lowground, it's because it was suicide.
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
That is true, but again, it's not that players back then weren't skilled enough to use them, it's because the game hadn't been figured out as much as it's now, and there were patches monthy or every couple of months that changed the game and oppened new strategies. It was not a matter of players not being good enough.
So I'll grant that we have more knowledge about the game now, but that doesn't mean more skill. And like poppi points out, a lot of that knowledge wouldn't work back then.
Sure, go back to wol and host and do a tank pressure with liberators and marines. O wait, liberators don't exist, tanks deal half the damage, and immortals have hardened shields. Ok then do this other all in cause you know protoss is vulnerable, oh shit Nexus overcharge with 15 range atacking you and defending the all in. Ok go and do that roach all in, o wait you just got zoned out with 10 forcefields and immortals with hardened shields are wrecking your stuff. Or hell, someone went up your ramp and put a forcefield on the ramp and you can't get there.
There also weren't QOL things like select all army hotkey, or select all idle workers.
"people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand"
nope. they played silly because they were cavemen banging together sticks and rocks for the first time.
everyone in 2010 GSL was just straight-up BAD
let me just pick a random VOD and pick it apart for you. here we are:
2010 Sony Ericsson StarCraft II Open Season 2, Grand Finals. Nestea vs. MKP, set 6 on Xel'Naga Caverns (the one that is supposedly suicide to expand on)
top tier bunker placement right there lmao. check out that sim-city at the top of the ramp! send me back in time. I will tell MKP that supply depots can be raised and lowered!
this is a fucking GSL grand finals man, and he can't even build his depots in the right place?
so yea, this is how MKP opened:
12 barracks at home no gas aggressive bunker at Nestea's ramp
I contend that even a modern-day platinum player would understand why this tactic is not going to work.
is the bunker a fake-out? if it is, it's obviously not worth it. whichever way you wanna go, this fake-out delays something important for the terran: either your factory or stim.
is MKP under the assumption that this bunker harass pays for itself? pulling 3 drones off the line in exchange for 25 minerals? to a 2010 caveman terran brain, yes, that might seem worth it, but it's not. MKP is horribly mistaken. soon Nestea will be researching zergling speed and MKP's got nothing in the pipe to deal with it. no hellions, no stim, nothing.
opening like this also leaves you vulnerable to zerg rushes.
MKP built his first depot near the mineral line. again, 2010 caveman thinking: "it costs extra mining time to send my SCV all the way to the ramp!" yea, like 10 minerals. totally worth it. having no wall-off against a 6-pool or 10-pool can literally end the game. it was never worth it. fast forward to 2012: the only terran still building his first depot at the mineral line vZ is GuMiho going gas first, and only very occasionally on certain maps that he seemed to think would benefit from an exceptionally early hellion.
MKP does indeed send his first marine across the map. what is he hoping to accomplish? to somehow slide it into a bunker that has no chance of finishing? or was he hoping to pick off a single drone? either way, this is absolutely brainless play. he could have used that marine to go hunting for Nestea's overlord instead. if he really wanted to get a marine in the bunker, or pick off some drones, he'd know to proxy his barracks and bring several SCVs.
send a 2023 GM back to play this game in MKP's place. they will proxy 2 barracks and bring 3 SCVs. they'll probably build the bunker elsewhere and build a gas behind it: just putting on some pressure, which for all Nestea knows could be a fully-committed all-in. pulling all the boys with a bunker rush was definitely a thing in WoL. our time-traveller would perhaps be aware of this and subvert expectations by building a factory at home. nobody, and I mean NOBODY was doing non-commital 2-raxx pressure against zerg back then -- and if they did, they certainly didn't build a gas behind it. they'd go straight into 4 barracks or 3CC before even starting a gas.
that's exactly what MKP does here: throws the CC down, sends his marine back home, and throws up an extra 3 barracks. 4 barracks total. techlab on the 1st barracks. no reactors... just awful. he goes for a combat shield timing, like you might expect Clem to do occasionally. a combat shield timing without a wall? well MKP, what happens if you lose all your marines? what then? you got no wall back at home buddy. there is no transitioning out of this if it goes poorly. that's how he loses this game.
for some inexplicable reason, known only to 2010 caveman terrans, he builds marauders to go with his combat shield push
he also brings 4 random SCVs to help with his combat shield push (was he planning to build MORE bunkers??)
a few possible explanations:
MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea is capable of at this point in the game MKP has no idea how strong his marines are against the zerglings Nestea is capable of having MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea actually decided to build
anyway, our boy Foxer gets completely overwhelmed and is still rallying marauders and marines on move-command into swarms of zerglings by the time Nestea has reached MKP's natural. he doesn't even throw down an emergency wall at his main ramp to stop the incoming counter-push. he still has SCVs mining in his natural, and pulls them with like 2 marines hoping that will be enough to hold on. he even pulls the MULEs to help defend
and you're seriously suggesting that it wasn't a matter of players being good enough? OK buddy
anyway, you aren't telling me anything I don't already know. I played WoL. I remember the maps, the builds, the strats and the whole evolving meta (at least for terran)
I remember it took several GSL seasons before Mvp showed these halfwits how to safely expand with hellions and banshees. you don't need a natural choke to effectively defend with hellions. if you're worried about speedlings, you can just block your main ramp with the hellions, poke out, thin them out a bit, then back safe to your main ramp. totally doable on Xel'Naga Caverns. maybe you have to go 12 raxx 13 gas and do a factory expand, but it'd still be 100x better than the shit terrans were doing in 2010. thor expand = good? really? c'mon
you say I ignore the context. I say you are ignoring what 13 years can do to a mf. these players didn't know how to scout or defend rushes. they didn't know how to take small advantages with skirmishing or harass. they were absolutely not skilled enough to use hellion / banshee effectively. please go watch TheBestfOu control his banshees in Super Tournament 2011:
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
But see these is just the type of things I mean when I say people miss remember early sc2 or ignore the context.
Yes, people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand. All maps now let you fast expand and close up the ramp with buildings if needed, go take a look at Xel Naga caverns or metalopolis or steppes of war and tell me you could fast expand there. Also, bases literally had more minerals and gas than they do currently so there was less of a rush to expand.
For example with protoss, you couldn't dream to expand fast or you'd die to a 6 pool (not 12 pool, 6 pool). Or they could get into your base because some bases had 2 entrances, or one blocked by destructible rocks. Then some better maps were released and you could fast expand using your nexus as part of the wall, but why bother when you could 4 gate and win? and then some other maps were released with areas where you could block the naturals entrance, and thats when people started using FFE. And then later with the adepts and change to 12 workers economy it's when finally you could gate expand. It's not that players before weren't good enough to open in the lowground, it's because it was suicide.
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
That is true, but again, it's not that players back then weren't skilled enough to use them, it's because the game hadn't been figured out as much as it's now, and there were patches monthy or every couple of months that changed the game and oppened new strategies. It was not a matter of players not being good enough.
So I'll grant that we have more knowledge about the game now, but that doesn't mean more skill. And like poppi points out, a lot of that knowledge wouldn't work back then.
Sure, go back to wol and host and do a tank pressure with liberators and marines. O wait, liberators don't exist, tanks deal half the damage, and immortals have hardened shields. Ok then do this other all in cause you know protoss is vulnerable, oh shit Nexus overcharge with 15 range atacking you and defending the all in. Ok go and do that roach all in, o wait you just got zoned out with 10 forcefields and immortals with hardened shields are wrecking your stuff. Or hell, someone went up your ramp and put a forcefield on the ramp and you can't get there.
There also weren't QOL things like select all army hotkey, or select all idle workers.
"people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand"
nope. they played silly because they were cavemen banging together sticks and rocks for the first time.
everyone in 2010 GSL was just straight-up BAD
let me just pick a random VOD and pick it apart for you. here we are:
2010 Sony Ericsson StarCraft II Open Season 2, Grand Finals. Nestea vs. MKP, set 6 on Xel'Naga Caverns (the one that is supposedly suicide to expand on)
top tier bunker placement right there lmao. check out that sim-city at the top of the ramp! send me back in time. I will tell MKP that supply depots can be raised and lowered!
this is a fucking GSL grand finals man, and he can't even build his depots in the right place?
so yea, this is how MKP opened:
12 barracks at home no gas aggressive bunker at Nestea's ramp
I contend that even a modern-day platinum player would understand why this tactic is not going to work.
is the bunker a fake-out? if it is, it's obviously not worth it. whichever way you wanna go, this fake-out delays something important for the terran: either your factory or stim.
is MKP under the assumption that this bunker harass pays for itself? pulling 3 drones off the line in exchange for 25 minerals? to a 2010 caveman terran brain, yes, that might seem worth it, but it's not. MKP is horribly mistaken. soon Nestea will be researching zergling speed and MKP's got nothing in the pipe to deal with it. no hellions, no stim, nothing.
opening like this also leaves you vulnerable to zerg rushes.
MKP built his first depot near the mineral line. again, 2010 caveman thinking: "it costs extra mining time to send my SCV all the way to the ramp!" yea, like 10 minerals. totally worth it. having no wall-off against a 6-pool or 10-pool can literally end the game. it was never worth it. fast forward to 2012: the only terran still building his first depot at the mineral line vZ is GuMiho going gas first, and only very occasionally on certain maps that he seemed to think would benefit from an exceptionally early hellion.
MKP does indeed send his first marine across the map. what is he hoping to accomplish? to somehow slide it into a bunker that has no chance of finishing? or was he hoping to pick off a single drone? either way, this is absolutely brainless play. he could have used that marine to go hunting for Nestea's overlord instead. if he really wanted to get a marine in the bunker, or pick off some drones, he'd know to proxy his barracks and bring several SCVs.
send a 2023 GM back to play this game in MKP's place. they will proxy 2 barracks and bring 3 SCVs. they'll probably build the bunker elsewhere and build a gas behind it: just putting on some pressure, which for all Nestea knows could be a fully-committed all-in. pulling all the boys with a bunker rush was definitely a thing in WoL. our time-traveller would perhaps be aware of this and subvert expectations by building a factory at home. nobody, and I mean NOBODY was doing non-commital 2-raxx pressure against zerg back then -- and if they did, they certainly didn't build a gas behind it. they'd go straight into 4 barracks or 3CC before even starting a gas.
that's exactly what MKP does here: throws the CC down, sends his marine back home, and throws up an extra 3 barracks. 4 barracks total. techlab on the 1st barracks. no reactors... just awful. he goes for a combat shield timing, like you might expect Clem to do occasionally. a combat shield timing without a wall? well MKP, what happens if you lose all your marines? what then? you got no wall back at home buddy. there is no transitioning out of this if it goes poorly. that's how he loses this game.
for some inexplicable reason, known only to 2010 caveman terrans, he builds marauders to go with his combat shield push
he also brings 4 random SCVs to help with his combat shield push (was he planning to build MORE bunkers??)
a few possible explanations:
MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea is capable of at this point in the game MKP has no idea how strong his marines are against the zerglings Nestea is capable of having MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea actually decided to build
anyway, our boy Foxer gets completely overwhelmed and is still rallying marauders and marines on move-command into swarms of zerglings by the time Nestea has reached MKP's natural. he doesn't even throw down an emergency wall at his main ramp to stop the incoming counter-push. he still has SCVs mining in his natural, and pulls them with like 2 marines hoping that will be enough to hold on. he even pulls the MULEs to help defend
and you're seriously suggesting that it wasn't a matter of players being good enough? OK buddy
anyway, you aren't telling me anything I don't already know. I played WoL. I remember the maps, the builds, the strats and the whole evolving meta (at least for terran)
I remember it took several GSL seasons before Mvp showed these halfwits how to safely expand with hellions and banshees. you don't need a natural choke to effectively defend with hellions. if you're worried about speedlings, you can just block your main ramp with the hellions, poke out, thin them out a bit, then back safe to your main ramp. totally doable on Xel'Naga Caverns. maybe you have to go 12 raxx 13 gas and do a factory expand, but it'd still be 100x better than the shit terrans were doing in 2010. thor expand = good? really? c'mon
you say I ignore the context. I say you are ignoring what 13 years can do to a mf. these players didn't know how to scout or defend rushes. they didn't know how to take small advantages with skirmishing or harass. they were absolutely not skilled enough to use hellion / banshee effectively. please go watch TheBestfOu control his banshees in Super Tournament 2011:
Thank you for your hilarious interpretation of that game. In case you didn't know, 2 rax was an all-in build until lotv. you're not casually 2 raxing then taking a gas and expanding like everything is fine.
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
But see these is just the type of things I mean when I say people miss remember early sc2 or ignore the context.
Yes, people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand. All maps now let you fast expand and close up the ramp with buildings if needed, go take a look at Xel Naga caverns or metalopolis or steppes of war and tell me you could fast expand there. Also, bases literally had more minerals and gas than they do currently so there was less of a rush to expand.
For example with protoss, you couldn't dream to expand fast or you'd die to a 6 pool (not 12 pool, 6 pool). Or they could get into your base because some bases had 2 entrances, or one blocked by destructible rocks. Then some better maps were released and you could fast expand using your nexus as part of the wall, but why bother when you could 4 gate and win? and then some other maps were released with areas where you could block the naturals entrance, and thats when people started using FFE. And then later with the adepts and change to 12 workers economy it's when finally you could gate expand. It's not that players before weren't good enough to open in the lowground, it's because it was suicide.
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
That is true, but again, it's not that players back then weren't skilled enough to use them, it's because the game hadn't been figured out as much as it's now, and there were patches monthy or every couple of months that changed the game and oppened new strategies. It was not a matter of players not being good enough.
So I'll grant that we have more knowledge about the game now, but that doesn't mean more skill. And like poppi points out, a lot of that knowledge wouldn't work back then.
Sure, go back to wol and host and do a tank pressure with liberators and marines. O wait, liberators don't exist, tanks deal half the damage, and immortals have hardened shields. Ok then do this other all in cause you know protoss is vulnerable, oh shit Nexus overcharge with 15 range atacking you and defending the all in. Ok go and do that roach all in, o wait you just got zoned out with 10 forcefields and immortals with hardened shields are wrecking your stuff. Or hell, someone went up your ramp and put a forcefield on the ramp and you can't get there.
There also weren't QOL things like select all army hotkey, or select all idle workers.
"people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand"
nope. they played silly because they were cavemen banging together sticks and rocks for the first time.
everyone in 2010 GSL was just straight-up BAD
let me just pick a random VOD and pick it apart for you. here we are:
2010 Sony Ericsson StarCraft II Open Season 2, Grand Finals. Nestea vs. MKP, set 6 on Xel'Naga Caverns (the one that is supposedly suicide to expand on)
top tier bunker placement right there lmao. check out that sim-city at the top of the ramp! send me back in time. I will tell MKP that supply depots can be raised and lowered!
this is a fucking GSL grand finals man, and he can't even build his depots in the right place?
so yea, this is how MKP opened:
12 barracks at home no gas aggressive bunker at Nestea's ramp
I contend that even a modern-day platinum player would understand why this tactic is not going to work.
is the bunker a fake-out? if it is, it's obviously not worth it. whichever way you wanna go, this fake-out delays something important for the terran: either your factory or stim.
is MKP under the assumption that this bunker harass pays for itself? pulling 3 drones off the line in exchange for 25 minerals? to a 2010 caveman terran brain, yes, that might seem worth it, but it's not. MKP is horribly mistaken. soon Nestea will be researching zergling speed and MKP's got nothing in the pipe to deal with it. no hellions, no stim, nothing.
opening like this also leaves you vulnerable to zerg rushes.
MKP built his first depot near the mineral line. again, 2010 caveman thinking: "it costs extra mining time to send my SCV all the way to the ramp!" yea, like 10 minerals. totally worth it. having no wall-off against a 6-pool or 10-pool can literally end the game. it was never worth it. fast forward to 2012: the only terran still building his first depot at the mineral line vZ is GuMiho going gas first, and only very occasionally on certain maps that he seemed to think would benefit from an exceptionally early hellion.
MKP does indeed send his first marine across the map. what is he hoping to accomplish? to somehow slide it into a bunker that has no chance of finishing? or was he hoping to pick off a single drone? either way, this is absolutely brainless play. he could have used that marine to go hunting for Nestea's overlord instead. if he really wanted to get a marine in the bunker, or pick off some drones, he'd know to proxy his barracks and bring several SCVs.
send a 2023 GM back to play this game in MKP's place. they will proxy 2 barracks and bring 3 SCVs. they'll probably build the bunker elsewhere and build a gas behind it: just putting on some pressure, which for all Nestea knows could be a fully-committed all-in. pulling all the boys with a bunker rush was definitely a thing in WoL. our time-traveller would perhaps be aware of this and subvert expectations by building a factory at home. nobody, and I mean NOBODY was doing non-commital 2-raxx pressure against zerg back then -- and if they did, they certainly didn't build a gas behind it. they'd go straight into 4 barracks or 3CC before even starting a gas.
that's exactly what MKP does here: throws the CC down, sends his marine back home, and throws up an extra 3 barracks. 4 barracks total. techlab on the 1st barracks. no reactors... just awful. he goes for a combat shield timing, like you might expect Clem to do occasionally. a combat shield timing without a wall? well MKP, what happens if you lose all your marines? what then? you got no wall back at home buddy. there is no transitioning out of this if it goes poorly. that's how he loses this game.
for some inexplicable reason, known only to 2010 caveman terrans, he builds marauders to go with his combat shield push
he also brings 4 random SCVs to help with his combat shield push (was he planning to build MORE bunkers??)
a few possible explanations:
MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea is capable of at this point in the game MKP has no idea how strong his marines are against the zerglings Nestea is capable of having MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea actually decided to build
anyway, our boy Foxer gets completely overwhelmed and is still rallying marauders and marines on move-command into swarms of zerglings by the time Nestea has reached MKP's natural. he doesn't even throw down an emergency wall at his main ramp to stop the incoming counter-push. he still has SCVs mining in his natural, and pulls them with like 2 marines hoping that will be enough to hold on. he even pulls the MULEs to help defend
and you're seriously suggesting that it wasn't a matter of players being good enough? OK buddy
anyway, you aren't telling me anything I don't already know. I played WoL. I remember the maps, the builds, the strats and the whole evolving meta (at least for terran)
I remember it took several GSL seasons before Mvp showed these halfwits how to safely expand with hellions and banshees. you don't need a natural choke to effectively defend with hellions. if you're worried about speedlings, you can just block your main ramp with the hellions, poke out, thin them out a bit, then back safe to your main ramp. totally doable on Xel'Naga Caverns. maybe you have to go 12 raxx 13 gas and do a factory expand, but it'd still be 100x better than the shit terrans were doing in 2010. thor expand = good? really? c'mon
you say I ignore the context. I say you are ignoring what 13 years can do to a mf. these players didn't know how to scout or defend rushes. they didn't know how to take small advantages with skirmishing or harass. they were absolutely not skilled enough to use hellion / banshee effectively. please go watch TheBestfOu control his banshees in Super Tournament 2011:
Thank you for your hilarious interpretation of that game. In case you didn't know, 2 rax was an all-in build until lotv. you're not casually 2 raxing then taking a gas and expanding like everything is fine.
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
But see these is just the type of things I mean when I say people miss remember early sc2 or ignore the context.
Yes, people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand. All maps now let you fast expand and close up the ramp with buildings if needed, go take a look at Xel Naga caverns or metalopolis or steppes of war and tell me you could fast expand there. Also, bases literally had more minerals and gas than they do currently so there was less of a rush to expand.
For example with protoss, you couldn't dream to expand fast or you'd die to a 6 pool (not 12 pool, 6 pool). Or they could get into your base because some bases had 2 entrances, or one blocked by destructible rocks. Then some better maps were released and you could fast expand using your nexus as part of the wall, but why bother when you could 4 gate and win? and then some other maps were released with areas where you could block the naturals entrance, and thats when people started using FFE. And then later with the adepts and change to 12 workers economy it's when finally you could gate expand. It's not that players before weren't good enough to open in the lowground, it's because it was suicide.
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
That is true, but again, it's not that players back then weren't skilled enough to use them, it's because the game hadn't been figured out as much as it's now, and there were patches monthy or every couple of months that changed the game and oppened new strategies. It was not a matter of players not being good enough.
So I'll grant that we have more knowledge about the game now, but that doesn't mean more skill. And like poppi points out, a lot of that knowledge wouldn't work back then.
Sure, go back to wol and host and do a tank pressure with liberators and marines. O wait, liberators don't exist, tanks deal half the damage, and immortals have hardened shields. Ok then do this other all in cause you know protoss is vulnerable, oh shit Nexus overcharge with 15 range atacking you and defending the all in. Ok go and do that roach all in, o wait you just got zoned out with 10 forcefields and immortals with hardened shields are wrecking your stuff. Or hell, someone went up your ramp and put a forcefield on the ramp and you can't get there.
There also weren't QOL things like select all army hotkey, or select all idle workers.
"people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand"
nope. they played silly because they were cavemen banging together sticks and rocks for the first time.
everyone in 2010 GSL was just straight-up BAD
let me just pick a random VOD and pick it apart for you. here we are:
2010 Sony Ericsson StarCraft II Open Season 2, Grand Finals. Nestea vs. MKP, set 6 on Xel'Naga Caverns (the one that is supposedly suicide to expand on)
top tier bunker placement right there lmao. check out that sim-city at the top of the ramp! send me back in time. I will tell MKP that supply depots can be raised and lowered!
this is a fucking GSL grand finals man, and he can't even build his depots in the right place?
so yea, this is how MKP opened:
12 barracks at home no gas aggressive bunker at Nestea's ramp
I contend that even a modern-day platinum player would understand why this tactic is not going to work.
is the bunker a fake-out? if it is, it's obviously not worth it. whichever way you wanna go, this fake-out delays something important for the terran: either your factory or stim.
is MKP under the assumption that this bunker harass pays for itself? pulling 3 drones off the line in exchange for 25 minerals? to a 2010 caveman terran brain, yes, that might seem worth it, but it's not. MKP is horribly mistaken. soon Nestea will be researching zergling speed and MKP's got nothing in the pipe to deal with it. no hellions, no stim, nothing.
opening like this also leaves you vulnerable to zerg rushes.
MKP built his first depot near the mineral line. again, 2010 caveman thinking: "it costs extra mining time to send my SCV all the way to the ramp!" yea, like 10 minerals. totally worth it. having no wall-off against a 6-pool or 10-pool can literally end the game. it was never worth it. fast forward to 2012: the only terran still building his first depot at the mineral line vZ is GuMiho going gas first, and only very occasionally on certain maps that he seemed to think would benefit from an exceptionally early hellion.
MKP does indeed send his first marine across the map. what is he hoping to accomplish? to somehow slide it into a bunker that has no chance of finishing? or was he hoping to pick off a single drone? either way, this is absolutely brainless play. he could have used that marine to go hunting for Nestea's overlord instead. if he really wanted to get a marine in the bunker, or pick off some drones, he'd know to proxy his barracks and bring several SCVs.
send a 2023 GM back to play this game in MKP's place. they will proxy 2 barracks and bring 3 SCVs. they'll probably build the bunker elsewhere and build a gas behind it: just putting on some pressure, which for all Nestea knows could be a fully-committed all-in. pulling all the boys with a bunker rush was definitely a thing in WoL. our time-traveller would perhaps be aware of this and subvert expectations by building a factory at home. nobody, and I mean NOBODY was doing non-commital 2-raxx pressure against zerg back then -- and if they did, they certainly didn't build a gas behind it. they'd go straight into 4 barracks or 3CC before even starting a gas.
that's exactly what MKP does here: throws the CC down, sends his marine back home, and throws up an extra 3 barracks. 4 barracks total. techlab on the 1st barracks. no reactors... just awful. he goes for a combat shield timing, like you might expect Clem to do occasionally. a combat shield timing without a wall? well MKP, what happens if you lose all your marines? what then? you got no wall back at home buddy. there is no transitioning out of this if it goes poorly. that's how he loses this game.
for some inexplicable reason, known only to 2010 caveman terrans, he builds marauders to go with his combat shield push
he also brings 4 random SCVs to help with his combat shield push (was he planning to build MORE bunkers??)
a few possible explanations:
MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea is capable of at this point in the game MKP has no idea how strong his marines are against the zerglings Nestea is capable of having MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea actually decided to build
anyway, our boy Foxer gets completely overwhelmed and is still rallying marauders and marines on move-command into swarms of zerglings by the time Nestea has reached MKP's natural. he doesn't even throw down an emergency wall at his main ramp to stop the incoming counter-push. he still has SCVs mining in his natural, and pulls them with like 2 marines hoping that will be enough to hold on. he even pulls the MULEs to help defend
and you're seriously suggesting that it wasn't a matter of players being good enough? OK buddy
anyway, you aren't telling me anything I don't already know. I played WoL. I remember the maps, the builds, the strats and the whole evolving meta (at least for terran)
I remember it took several GSL seasons before Mvp showed these halfwits how to safely expand with hellions and banshees. you don't need a natural choke to effectively defend with hellions. if you're worried about speedlings, you can just block your main ramp with the hellions, poke out, thin them out a bit, then back safe to your main ramp. totally doable on Xel'Naga Caverns. maybe you have to go 12 raxx 13 gas and do a factory expand, but it'd still be 100x better than the shit terrans were doing in 2010. thor expand = good? really? c'mon
you say I ignore the context. I say you are ignoring what 13 years can do to a mf. these players didn't know how to scout or defend rushes. they didn't know how to take small advantages with skirmishing or harass. they were absolutely not skilled enough to use hellion / banshee effectively. please go watch TheBestfOu control his banshees in Super Tournament 2011:
You're not wrong about MKP being braindead, but you're also taking literally the most braindead player to have ever played sc2 as an example, which is quite literally nitpicking. I could use ByuN's throw yesterday to show how stupid players are today as well.
And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
But see these is just the type of things I mean when I say people miss remember early sc2 or ignore the context.
Yes, people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand. All maps now let you fast expand and close up the ramp with buildings if needed, go take a look at Xel Naga caverns or metalopolis or steppes of war and tell me you could fast expand there. Also, bases literally had more minerals and gas than they do currently so there was less of a rush to expand.
For example with protoss, you couldn't dream to expand fast or you'd die to a 6 pool (not 12 pool, 6 pool). Or they could get into your base because some bases had 2 entrances, or one blocked by destructible rocks. Then some better maps were released and you could fast expand using your nexus as part of the wall, but why bother when you could 4 gate and win? and then some other maps were released with areas where you could block the naturals entrance, and thats when people started using FFE. And then later with the adepts and change to 12 workers economy it's when finally you could gate expand. It's not that players before weren't good enough to open in the lowground, it's because it was suicide.
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
That is true, but again, it's not that players back then weren't skilled enough to use them, it's because the game hadn't been figured out as much as it's now, and there were patches monthy or every couple of months that changed the game and oppened new strategies. It was not a matter of players not being good enough.
So I'll grant that we have more knowledge about the game now, but that doesn't mean more skill. And like poppi points out, a lot of that knowledge wouldn't work back then.
Sure, go back to wol and host and do a tank pressure with liberators and marines. O wait, liberators don't exist, tanks deal half the damage, and immortals have hardened shields. Ok then do this other all in cause you know protoss is vulnerable, oh shit Nexus overcharge with 15 range atacking you and defending the all in. Ok go and do that roach all in, o wait you just got zoned out with 10 forcefields and immortals with hardened shields are wrecking your stuff. Or hell, someone went up your ramp and put a forcefield on the ramp and you can't get there.
There also weren't QOL things like select all army hotkey, or select all idle workers.
"people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand"
nope. they played silly because they were cavemen banging together sticks and rocks for the first time.
everyone in 2010 GSL was just straight-up BAD
let me just pick a random VOD and pick it apart for you. here we are:
2010 Sony Ericsson StarCraft II Open Season 2, Grand Finals. Nestea vs. MKP, set 6 on Xel'Naga Caverns (the one that is supposedly suicide to expand on)
top tier bunker placement right there lmao. check out that sim-city at the top of the ramp! send me back in time. I will tell MKP that supply depots can be raised and lowered!
this is a fucking GSL grand finals man, and he can't even build his depots in the right place?
so yea, this is how MKP opened:
12 barracks at home no gas aggressive bunker at Nestea's ramp
I contend that even a modern-day platinum player would understand why this tactic is not going to work.
is the bunker a fake-out? if it is, it's obviously not worth it. whichever way you wanna go, this fake-out delays something important for the terran: either your factory or stim.
is MKP under the assumption that this bunker harass pays for itself? pulling 3 drones off the line in exchange for 25 minerals? to a 2010 caveman terran brain, yes, that might seem worth it, but it's not. MKP is horribly mistaken. soon Nestea will be researching zergling speed and MKP's got nothing in the pipe to deal with it. no hellions, no stim, nothing.
opening like this also leaves you vulnerable to zerg rushes.
MKP built his first depot near the mineral line. again, 2010 caveman thinking: "it costs extra mining time to send my SCV all the way to the ramp!" yea, like 10 minerals. totally worth it. having no wall-off against a 6-pool or 10-pool can literally end the game. it was never worth it. fast forward to 2012: the only terran still building his first depot at the mineral line vZ is GuMiho going gas first, and only very occasionally on certain maps that he seemed to think would benefit from an exceptionally early hellion.
MKP does indeed send his first marine across the map. what is he hoping to accomplish? to somehow slide it into a bunker that has no chance of finishing? or was he hoping to pick off a single drone? either way, this is absolutely brainless play. he could have used that marine to go hunting for Nestea's overlord instead. if he really wanted to get a marine in the bunker, or pick off some drones, he'd know to proxy his barracks and bring several SCVs.
send a 2023 GM back to play this game in MKP's place. they will proxy 2 barracks and bring 3 SCVs. they'll probably build the bunker elsewhere and build a gas behind it: just putting on some pressure, which for all Nestea knows could be a fully-committed all-in. pulling all the boys with a bunker rush was definitely a thing in WoL. our time-traveller would perhaps be aware of this and subvert expectations by building a factory at home. nobody, and I mean NOBODY was doing non-commital 2-raxx pressure against zerg back then -- and if they did, they certainly didn't build a gas behind it. they'd go straight into 4 barracks or 3CC before even starting a gas.
that's exactly what MKP does here: throws the CC down, sends his marine back home, and throws up an extra 3 barracks. 4 barracks total. techlab on the 1st barracks. no reactors... just awful. he goes for a combat shield timing, like you might expect Clem to do occasionally. a combat shield timing without a wall? well MKP, what happens if you lose all your marines? what then? you got no wall back at home buddy. there is no transitioning out of this if it goes poorly. that's how he loses this game.
for some inexplicable reason, known only to 2010 caveman terrans, he builds marauders to go with his combat shield push
he also brings 4 random SCVs to help with his combat shield push (was he planning to build MORE bunkers??)
a few possible explanations:
MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea is capable of at this point in the game MKP has no idea how strong his marines are against the zerglings Nestea is capable of having MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea actually decided to build
anyway, our boy Foxer gets completely overwhelmed and is still rallying marauders and marines on move-command into swarms of zerglings by the time Nestea has reached MKP's natural. he doesn't even throw down an emergency wall at his main ramp to stop the incoming counter-push. he still has SCVs mining in his natural, and pulls them with like 2 marines hoping that will be enough to hold on. he even pulls the MULEs to help defend
and you're seriously suggesting that it wasn't a matter of players being good enough? OK buddy
anyway, you aren't telling me anything I don't already know. I played WoL. I remember the maps, the builds, the strats and the whole evolving meta (at least for terran)
I remember it took several GSL seasons before Mvp showed these halfwits how to safely expand with hellions and banshees. you don't need a natural choke to effectively defend with hellions. if you're worried about speedlings, you can just block your main ramp with the hellions, poke out, thin them out a bit, then back safe to your main ramp. totally doable on Xel'Naga Caverns. maybe you have to go 12 raxx 13 gas and do a factory expand, but it'd still be 100x better than the shit terrans were doing in 2010. thor expand = good? really? c'mon
you say I ignore the context. I say you are ignoring what 13 years can do to a mf. these players didn't know how to scout or defend rushes. they didn't know how to take small advantages with skirmishing or harass. they were absolutely not skilled enough to use hellion / banshee effectively. please go watch TheBestfOu control his banshees in Super Tournament 2011:
You're not wrong about MKP being braindead, but you're also taking literally the most braindead player to have ever played sc2 as an example, which is quite literally nitpicking. I could use ByuN's throw yesterday to show how stupid players are today as well.
most braindead player... GSL finals... most braindead player... GSL finals... finals... finals... is it starting to sink in yet? no? let me spell it out then: this was the best 2 players SC2 had to offer. I could win GSL if I had a time machine. hell, even you could win a GSL if you had a time machine
btw: honest to god, on my mother's grave, I genuinely picked that VOD at random. I hadn't even seen this series before because I don't care much for MKP. I just typed in "xel'naga caverns GSL" and that popped up. send me any other VOD from 2010 and I'll explain why it's bad. or better yet, why don't you pick a VOD from 2010 and explain why it's even remotely on par with GM-level 2023 skill? I feel like I'm being unfairly burdened disproving your nonsensical premises.
show me a VOD of a 2010 terran sniping speed banes, or controlling 3 different unit groups on different parts of the map, or hitting MULE timings perfectly until the 10 minute mark, or using ghosts to deal with lategame zerg like GM terrans do nowadays. you won't find one, because 2010 players were bad
On July 22 2023 08:57 Starcloud wrote: Man, what a shitshow has this thread again been. And so much false assumptions and information over all. Few corrections;
On July 22 2023 04:55 [Phantom] wrote: I've heard some people saying that the level of skill before wasn't as high as it's now. Even Artosis says that. But I think they are unfortunately wrong.
They would be right if the scene was growing consistently, but the Starcraft 2 scene has had it's ups and downs.
What in earth does that have to do with skill ? Have you actually looked games around 2010 - 2015 ? Even todays diamond player would do well in those games. You can always talk about relative skill, but if you look at the gameplay, micro etc, its clear that the skill-level has grown dramatically since then. Its not even close really.
Agreed. A diamond player from today would have stomped Life in this game
I am pretty sure random GMs of today on EU would never win even the earliest GSLs of WoL if they could go back in time and compete in that era.
bro... just stop. you clearly haven't even watched those 2010 GSLs
this is what terrans did in TvZ:
fast tank to defend against roaches! fast armory, then a thor to defend against mutas! all on just one base lol
these terrans only dared to float their natural CC out when they were ready with a thor
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
then once you're on 2 bases and have your 2 obligatory early game thors, the terran infrastructure looks like this:
2 factories pumping out tanks 2 barracks pumping 1 marauder, 2 marines 1 starport, no reactor, just building a single medivac at a time
if you sent a GM player back, he would just absolutely destroy everyone with build order mastery alone. that's before we even talk about race mechanics and multi-tasking, which was laughably bad in the first seasons of WoL. pro koreans didn't even have enough APM to harass mineral lines until 2011. 2010 was basically just sit in your base, build up an army, go for some random ass timing attack and hope to win
But see these is just the type of things I mean when I say people miss remember early sc2 or ignore the context.
Yes, people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand. All maps now let you fast expand and close up the ramp with buildings if needed, go take a look at Xel Naga caverns or metalopolis or steppes of war and tell me you could fast expand there. Also, bases literally had more minerals and gas than they do currently so there was less of a rush to expand.
For example with protoss, you couldn't dream to expand fast or you'd die to a 6 pool (not 12 pool, 6 pool). Or they could get into your base because some bases had 2 entrances, or one blocked by destructible rocks. Then some better maps were released and you could fast expand using your nexus as part of the wall, but why bother when you could 4 gate and win? and then some other maps were released with areas where you could block the naturals entrance, and thats when people started using FFE. And then later with the adepts and change to 12 workers economy it's when finally you could gate expand. It's not that players before weren't good enough to open in the lowground, it's because it was suicide.
absolutely no hellions or banshees. it took a whole year for terrans to figure out that hellion / banshee was good
That is true, but again, it's not that players back then weren't skilled enough to use them, it's because the game hadn't been figured out as much as it's now, and there were patches monthy or every couple of months that changed the game and oppened new strategies. It was not a matter of players not being good enough.
So I'll grant that we have more knowledge about the game now, but that doesn't mean more skill. And like poppi points out, a lot of that knowledge wouldn't work back then.
Sure, go back to wol and host and do a tank pressure with liberators and marines. O wait, liberators don't exist, tanks deal half the damage, and immortals have hardened shields. Ok then do this other all in cause you know protoss is vulnerable, oh shit Nexus overcharge with 15 range atacking you and defending the all in. Ok go and do that roach all in, o wait you just got zoned out with 10 forcefields and immortals with hardened shields are wrecking your stuff. Or hell, someone went up your ramp and put a forcefield on the ramp and you can't get there.
There also weren't QOL things like select all army hotkey, or select all idle workers.
"people played 1 base, because most maps were tiny and it would be suicide to fast expand"
nope. they played silly because they were cavemen banging together sticks and rocks for the first time.
everyone in 2010 GSL was just straight-up BAD
let me just pick a random VOD and pick it apart for you. here we are:
2010 Sony Ericsson StarCraft II Open Season 2, Grand Finals. Nestea vs. MKP, set 6 on Xel'Naga Caverns (the one that is supposedly suicide to expand on)
top tier bunker placement right there lmao. check out that sim-city at the top of the ramp! send me back in time. I will tell MKP that supply depots can be raised and lowered!
this is a fucking GSL grand finals man, and he can't even build his depots in the right place?
so yea, this is how MKP opened:
12 barracks at home no gas aggressive bunker at Nestea's ramp
I contend that even a modern-day platinum player would understand why this tactic is not going to work.
is the bunker a fake-out? if it is, it's obviously not worth it. whichever way you wanna go, this fake-out delays something important for the terran: either your factory or stim.
is MKP under the assumption that this bunker harass pays for itself? pulling 3 drones off the line in exchange for 25 minerals? to a 2010 caveman terran brain, yes, that might seem worth it, but it's not. MKP is horribly mistaken. soon Nestea will be researching zergling speed and MKP's got nothing in the pipe to deal with it. no hellions, no stim, nothing.
opening like this also leaves you vulnerable to zerg rushes.
MKP built his first depot near the mineral line. again, 2010 caveman thinking: "it costs extra mining time to send my SCV all the way to the ramp!" yea, like 10 minerals. totally worth it. having no wall-off against a 6-pool or 10-pool can literally end the game. it was never worth it. fast forward to 2012: the only terran still building his first depot at the mineral line vZ is GuMiho going gas first, and only very occasionally on certain maps that he seemed to think would benefit from an exceptionally early hellion.
MKP does indeed send his first marine across the map. what is he hoping to accomplish? to somehow slide it into a bunker that has no chance of finishing? or was he hoping to pick off a single drone? either way, this is absolutely brainless play. he could have used that marine to go hunting for Nestea's overlord instead. if he really wanted to get a marine in the bunker, or pick off some drones, he'd know to proxy his barracks and bring several SCVs.
send a 2023 GM back to play this game in MKP's place. they will proxy 2 barracks and bring 3 SCVs. they'll probably build the bunker elsewhere and build a gas behind it: just putting on some pressure, which for all Nestea knows could be a fully-committed all-in. pulling all the boys with a bunker rush was definitely a thing in WoL. our time-traveller would perhaps be aware of this and subvert expectations by building a factory at home. nobody, and I mean NOBODY was doing non-commital 2-raxx pressure against zerg back then -- and if they did, they certainly didn't build a gas behind it. they'd go straight into 4 barracks or 3CC before even starting a gas.
that's exactly what MKP does here: throws the CC down, sends his marine back home, and throws up an extra 3 barracks. 4 barracks total. techlab on the 1st barracks. no reactors... just awful. he goes for a combat shield timing, like you might expect Clem to do occasionally. a combat shield timing without a wall? well MKP, what happens if you lose all your marines? what then? you got no wall back at home buddy. there is no transitioning out of this if it goes poorly. that's how he loses this game.
for some inexplicable reason, known only to 2010 caveman terrans, he builds marauders to go with his combat shield push
he also brings 4 random SCVs to help with his combat shield push (was he planning to build MORE bunkers??)
a few possible explanations:
MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea is capable of at this point in the game MKP has no idea how strong his marines are against the zerglings Nestea is capable of having MKP has no idea how many zerglings Nestea actually decided to build
anyway, our boy Foxer gets completely overwhelmed and is still rallying marauders and marines on move-command into swarms of zerglings by the time Nestea has reached MKP's natural. he doesn't even throw down an emergency wall at his main ramp to stop the incoming counter-push. he still has SCVs mining in his natural, and pulls them with like 2 marines hoping that will be enough to hold on. he even pulls the MULEs to help defend
and you're seriously suggesting that it wasn't a matter of players being good enough? OK buddy
anyway, you aren't telling me anything I don't already know. I played WoL. I remember the maps, the builds, the strats and the whole evolving meta (at least for terran)
I remember it took several GSL seasons before Mvp showed these halfwits how to safely expand with hellions and banshees. you don't need a natural choke to effectively defend with hellions. if you're worried about speedlings, you can just block your main ramp with the hellions, poke out, thin them out a bit, then back safe to your main ramp. totally doable on Xel'Naga Caverns. maybe you have to go 12 raxx 13 gas and do a factory expand, but it'd still be 100x better than the shit terrans were doing in 2010. thor expand = good? really? c'mon
you say I ignore the context. I say you are ignoring what 13 years can do to a mf. these players didn't know how to scout or defend rushes. they didn't know how to take small advantages with skirmishing or harass. they were absolutely not skilled enough to use hellion / banshee effectively. please go watch TheBestfOu control his banshees in Super Tournament 2011:
You're not wrong about MKP being braindead, but you're also taking literally the most braindead player to have ever played sc2 as an example, which is quite literally nitpicking. I could use ByuN's throw yesterday to show how stupid players are today as well.
most braindead player... GSL finals... most braindead player... GSL finals... finals... finals... is it starting to sink in yet? no? let me spell it out then: this was the best 2 players SC2 had to offer. I could win GSL if I had a time machine. hell, even you could win a GSL if you had a time machine
Well ByuN and Reynor are still out there getting far/winning tournaments as well.
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
I think Fatboy Slim’s seminal record is suitably titled here, it’s not disparaging the players of that time, plenty who grew into great players to look at just how far off general understanding of most things in the game was back then.
Same would be true of BW, send a top amateur back far enough and they’ll wreck face.
RTS more than most genres is one of knowledge and skill, and the collective knowledge pool just builds and builds and is assimilated through the years
If there’s a skill gap between peak HoTS and now, and I think there’s good arguments in either direction, there’s a chasm between now and early WoL. It’s absolutely visible the second you watch a game, whereas what may exist between HoTs and now is more subtle and requires more deliberately.
I mean San (Man) Zenith blocked his bloomin Nexus with his forge but he turned out to be decent, but it’s the kind of blunder you saw with semi-regularity in those times.
MKP may indeed have been consistently brainless but he was consistently placing and was SC2’s first real Kong.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say our time traveller decent GM can take earlier GSLs.
Come later in WoL, I don’t think they do. Too many players with too much talent started to understand the game. It started to shape into something more recnognisibly modern, eroding that knowledge advantage.
I don’t think a decent GM can hang with an Mvp, or a Life, guys like Parting and Taeja were monsters who looked recognisably modern. Maybe at a stretch in terms of basic mechanics, but when you combo that with tactical decision-making on the fly.
That’s what separates top pros from the good, good from the mediocre and them from good amateurs.
I think Fatboy Slim’s seminal record is suitably titled here, it’s not disparaging the players of that time, plenty who grew into great players to look at just how far off general understanding of most things in the game was back then.
Same would be true of BW, send a top amateur back far enough and they’ll wreck face.
RTS more than most genres is one of knowledge and skill, and the collective knowledge pool just builds and builds and is assimilated through the years
If there’s a skill gap between peak HoTS and now, and I think there’s good arguments in either direction, there’s a chasm between now and early WoL. It’s absolutely visible the second you watch a game, whereas what may exist between HoTs and now is more subtle and requires more deliberately.
I mean San (Man) Zenith blocked his bloomin Nexus with his forge but he turned out to be decent, but it’s the kind of blunder you saw with semi-regularity in those times.
MKP may indeed have been consistently brainless but he was consistently placing and was SC2’s first real Kong.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say our time traveller decent GM can take earlier GSLs.
Come later in WoL, I don’t think they do. Too many players with too much talent started to understand the game. It started to shape into something more recnognisibly modern, eroding that knowledge advantage.
I don’t think a decent GM can hang with an Mvp, or a Life, guys like Parting and Taeja were monsters who looked recognisably modern. Maybe at a stretch in terms of basic mechanics, but when you combo that with tactical decision-making on the fly.
That’s what separates top pros from the good, good from the mediocre and them from good amateurs.
While I agree with the knowledge building in general, it's also worth noting that the game has changed so much that a lot of the knowledge players have earned wouldn't be applicable in earlier versions of the game. In early WoL, sure, you would have a massive knowledge gap in terms of basic unit interactions and micro (i.e. splitting vs Banes) but if a player from today would travel to like mid-2012 or later, I don't think he would be able to contribute much in terms of knowledge. Probably it would be the other way, that the time traveller would be forced to re-learn the game
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
It’s not the same game or a problem of skill though? If you send back in time a current random EU GM, they would not win GSL. They would lose to a random build since the game was a mess back then. Only if we are talking about stable WoL (like imba BL/infestors days) the random GM might have a shot. A current diamond player from now wouldn’t even qualify for the GSLs of back then
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
It’s not the same game or a problem of skill though? If you send back in time a current random EU GM, they would not win GSL. They would lose to a random build since the game was a mess back then. Only if we are talking about stable WoL (like imba BL/infestors days) the random GM might have a shot. A current diamond player from now wouldn’t even qualify for the GSLs of back then
hindsight is always 20/20. a random EU GM would blow peoples minds with skill that we nowadays take for granted. the game wasn't really a mess since it got figured out on more or less the same patch, with the same units. the only thing that significantly changed in WoL were the maps. it was a mess because it was new and nobody had anything figured out yet, the game knowledge and player experience is chiefly what brought about stability
to use your example, infestors were always strong, even at the end of WoL beta. zergs just didn't utilize them until the later days. there was no huge patch that suddenly brought about "patchzergs" like Vortix and Sniper. zergs just figured it out over time
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
It’s not the same game or a problem of skill though? If you send back in time a current random EU GM, they would not win GSL. They would lose to a random build since the game was a mess back then. Only if we are talking about stable WoL (like imba BL/infestors days) the random GM might have a shot. A current diamond player from now wouldn’t even qualify for the GSLs of back then
there was no huge patch that suddenly brought about "patchzergs"
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
It’s not the same game or a problem of skill though? If you send back in time a current random EU GM, they would not win GSL. They would lose to a random build since the game was a mess back then. Only if we are talking about stable WoL (like imba BL/infestors days) the random GM might have a shot. A current diamond player from now wouldn’t even qualify for the GSLs of back then
hindsight is always 20/20. a random EU GM would blow peoples minds with skill that we nowadays take for granted. the game wasn't really a mess since it got figured out on more or less the same patch, with the same units. the only thing that significantly changed in WoL were the maps. it was a mess because it was new and nobody had anything figured out yet, the game knowledge and player experience is chiefly what brought about stability
to use your example, infestors were always strong, even at the end of WoL beta. zergs just didn't utilize them until the later days. there was no huge patch that suddenly brought about "patchzergs" like Vortix and Sniper. zergs just figured it out over time
Ghosts were nerfed, queens were buffed, there were a bazillon bunker changes… not even talking about the thors that ThorZain got nerfed. Anyways, we can argue about GMs I guess, but current diamonds still are miles below early WoL in skill so the initial claim is bogus
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
It’s not the same game or a problem of skill though? If you send back in time a current random EU GM, they would not win GSL. They would lose to a random build since the game was a mess back then. Only if we are talking about stable WoL (like imba BL/infestors days) the random GM might have a shot. A current diamond player from now wouldn’t even qualify for the GSLs of back then
there was no huge patch that suddenly brought about "patchzergs"
I wonder why they were called patchzergs then
because ghosts got nerfed?
nah. patchzerg was a name for players who leaned heavily on the obnoxious turtle infestor playstyle. nobody said Life was a patchzerg because he had range. he always showed his skill with speedlings and micro at every opportunity. the likes of Sniper and Vortix would just a-move a 200/200 army of ultra / infestor / brood back home just to defend 1 drop with 8 marines in it.
if I may rephrase: there was no huge direct buff to infestors that suddenly made them OP. they were always strong. it was other sets of circumstances that made them OP: sensible maps being pushed into the map-pool, plus 2 years of player growth
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
It’s not the same game or a problem of skill though? If you send back in time a current random EU GM, they would not win GSL. They would lose to a random build since the game was a mess back then. Only if we are talking about stable WoL (like imba BL/infestors days) the random GM might have a shot. A current diamond player from now wouldn’t even qualify for the GSLs of back then
hindsight is always 20/20. a random EU GM would blow peoples minds with skill that we nowadays take for granted. the game wasn't really a mess since it got figured out on more or less the same patch, with the same units. the only thing that significantly changed in WoL were the maps. it was a mess because it was new and nobody had anything figured out yet, the game knowledge and player experience is chiefly what brought about stability
to use your example, infestors were always strong, even at the end of WoL beta. zergs just didn't utilize them until the later days. there was no huge patch that suddenly brought about "patchzergs" like Vortix and Sniper. zergs just figured it out over time
Ghosts were nerfed, queens were buffed, there were a bazillon bunker changes… not even talking about the thors that ThorZain got nerfed. Anyways, we can argue about GMs I guess, but current diamonds still are miles below early WoL in skill so the initial claim is bogus
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
It’s not the same game or a problem of skill though? If you send back in time a current random EU GM, they would not win GSL. They would lose to a random build since the game was a mess back then. Only if we are talking about stable WoL (like imba BL/infestors days) the random GM might have a shot. A current diamond player from now wouldn’t even qualify for the GSLs of back then
there was no huge patch that suddenly brought about "patchzergs"
I think Fatboy Slim’s seminal record is suitably titled here, it’s not disparaging the players of that time, plenty who grew into great players to look at just how far off general understanding of most things in the game was back then.
Same would be true of BW, send a top amateur back far enough and they’ll wreck face.
RTS more than most genres is one of knowledge and skill, and the collective knowledge pool just builds and builds and is assimilated through the years
If there’s a skill gap between peak HoTS and now, and I think there’s good arguments in either direction, there’s a chasm between now and early WoL. It’s absolutely visible the second you watch a game, whereas what may exist between HoTs and now is more subtle and requires more deliberately.
I mean San (Man) Zenith blocked his bloomin Nexus with his forge but he turned out to be decent, but it’s the kind of blunder you saw with semi-regularity in those times.
MKP may indeed have been consistently brainless but he was consistently placing and was SC2’s first real Kong.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say our time traveller decent GM can take earlier GSLs.
Come later in WoL, I don’t think they do. Too many players with too much talent started to understand the game. It started to shape into something more recnognisibly modern, eroding that knowledge advantage.
I don’t think a decent GM can hang with an Mvp, or a Life, guys like Parting and Taeja were monsters who looked recognisably modern. Maybe at a stretch in terms of basic mechanics, but when you combo that with tactical decision-making on the fly.
That’s what separates top pros from the good, good from the mediocre and them from good amateurs.
While I agree with the knowledge building in general, it's also worth noting that the game has changed so much that a lot of the knowledge players have earned wouldn't be applicable in earlier versions of the game. In early WoL, sure, you would have a massive knowledge gap in terms of basic unit interactions and micro (i.e. splitting vs Banes) but if a player from today would travel to like mid-2012 or later, I don't think he would be able to contribute much in terms of knowledge. Probably it would be the other way, that the time traveller would be forced to re-learn the game
Yeah, kinda what I meant by ‘Come later in WoL, I don’t think they do. Too many players with too much talent started to understand the game. It started to shape into something more recnognisibly modern, eroding that knowledge advantages.’ but yeah also what you said
Builds aside, maps aside. In terms of general fundamental stuff the game went from blank slate to the general rudiments being fleshed out in that 2010-2012 kinda period, as you’d generally expect from a new RTS the period of biggest development will almost invariably be in that period.
Which I think is the only place you could send our hypothetical time traveller. Once your Lifes, Taejas arise and subsequent Kespa invasion happen, playing a pretty recognisable style of SC2, think there’s basically no chance whatsoever
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
It’s not the same game or a problem of skill though? If you send back in time a current random EU GM, they would not win GSL. They would lose to a random build since the game was a mess back then. Only if we are talking about stable WoL (like imba BL/infestors days) the random GM might have a shot. A current diamond player from now wouldn’t even qualify for the GSLs of back then
there was no huge patch that suddenly brought about "patchzergs"
I wonder why they were called patchzergs then
because ghosts got nerfed?
Sounds like there was a patch then, doesn't it?
The patch that precipitated ye olde ‘Patchzerg’ era was the Queen buffs.
Zergs had already kinda figured out that Infestors were good, Broods were good and the combo was pretty damn sexy
That patch once it settled and the hive mind got to work let them rely on pretty light defences, sometimes just pure Queen ling early and bank gas to tech to BL/Infestor way earlier than was safe and viable before. If memory serves Stephano’s understanding of this was a bit ahead of the curve and saw him bringing it to Korea for a bit
Also as people were by default building auxiliary Queens as they were too good to skip, creep spread started getting pretty crazy too as players started making use of their non-inject Queens to do this
My memory may be a bit off here though so people are free to correct me.
It does neatly illustrate the knock-on effects even one change can have.
On July 23 2023 19:02 Poopi wrote: And theBestfOu banshees were already considered as super bad back then. The fact that he finished 5th doesn’t mean much, herO played horrendously vs NightMare this very GSL
he was good enough to finish 5th place in a GSL tournament
and this isn't even super early days. this is late 2011. think about it. GSL players in 2011 actually lost games to theBestfOu. I would literally hang myself in shame if I lost a single unit to theBestfOu
look, if you can't see the very obvious errors that would literally end a game instantly in 2023, then I can't help you. either you don't play enough SC2 to understand how impactful these errors are, or you are looking at 2010 players through rose- tinted glasses. they were bad. all of them. even Mvp at his most glorious was just a modern-day Kas in terms of skill. doesn't detract from his glory -- it was the best SC2 had to offer at the time, and it was amazing to watch. you just have to acknowledge that the skill ceiling has been shattered over and over in the last 13 years.
the easiest way to see the difference in skill: compare a ffpov from the early days of WoL with a fppov from nowadays
It’s not the same game or a problem of skill though? If you send back in time a current random EU GM, they would not win GSL. They would lose to a random build since the game was a mess back then. Only if we are talking about stable WoL (like imba BL/infestors days) the random GM might have a shot. A current diamond player from now wouldn’t even qualify for the GSLs of back then
there was no huge patch that suddenly brought about "patchzergs"
I wonder why they were called patchzergs then
because ghosts got nerfed?
Sounds like there was a patch then, doesn't it?
The patch that precipitated ye olde ‘Patchzerg’ era was the Queen buffs.
Zergs had already kinda figured out that Infestors were good, Broods were good and the combo was pretty damn sexy
That patch once it settled and the hive mind got to work let them rely on pretty light defences, sometimes just pure Queen ling early and bank gas to tech to BL/Infestor way earlier than was safe and viable before. If memory serves Stephano’s understanding of this was a bit ahead of the curve and saw him bringing it to Korea for a bit
Also as people were by default building auxiliary Queens as they were too good to skip, creep spread started getting pretty crazy too as players started making use of their non-inject Queens to do this
My memory may be a bit off here though so people are free to correct me.
It does neatly illustrate the knock-on effects even one change can have.
I know all this, but the guy literally said there was no patch that brought patchzergs which is just silly. Unless he meant that there were no direct infestor buffs. Zergs back then knew for a while infestors were strong, but they couldn't get there reliably until queens got buffed is all (and the maps changed a bit and got more macro/defensive over time as well). Him implying it's a lack of knowledge from the zergs that gave us BL/infestors so "late" in WoL's lifespan and not the queen buff is stupid.
ex bw progamers who played sc2 in 2010 had far better mechanics than current masters/low gm players.
the game was a lot harder to play back then (but still a lot easier than bw.)
No all-army, No worker indication, No hotkey stealing, and im sure im missing quite a few things.
Gameunderstanding and knowledge wise, a present day GM player would be miles ahead, but mechanics wise, I guess most of the ex pros from 2010 would be far better than your average low gm.
On July 24 2023 19:09 freakzstrop wrote: I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Impossible. Because neither Dark or Solar have won as many championships as Serrals has (in tourney they participated together), and neither of them have the record in head to head against all the top koreans, which is: Beat ALL OF THEM more than they beat you.
Not comparable.
And while you were, dreamingly writing this folly Serral went and, casually took another trophy
On July 24 2023 19:09 freakzstrop wrote: I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Impossible. Because neither Dark or Solar have won as many championships as Serrals has (in tourney they participated together), and neither of them have the record in head to head against all the top koreans, which is: Beat ALL OF THEM more than they beat you.
Not comparable.
And while you were, dreamingly writing this folly Serral went and, casually took another trophy
Please, this thread is bad enough already without attempted poetry.
Serral is without a doubt one of the most, maybe THE MOST, skilled players this game has seen. Some trolls pretending that he'd just lose in the qualifiers or whatever (especially now, lol) is just bait, don't feed this nonsense. At the same time i was quite disappointed when he first said he has no interest to compete in gsl, like it or not, but korea is the mekka of starcraft, starleagues like the gsl were for most of starcraft's history the most prestigious tournaments due to the competitive level being the highest. This isn't the case any longer, as the korean scene is just a shadow of its former self (maybe it wasn't the case anymore when he first said it, arguable i guess), but it would have been very exciting to see him compete in 2018 or so, add that to his resume in some form. I never fully understood how the timeframe was too much for him, but hey ever person is different and i guess he's not comfortable outside his typical environment for 2 months, so be it.
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.
On July 24 2023 19:09 freakzstrop wrote: I never said Serral was some chobo either, but "alternative universe Serral who grew up in KR w/ the same skills" would be regarded at about Dark or Solar level or something like that, not sc2 GOAT...
Alternative universe Korean Serral is, potentially Serral with all his innate ability training day in, day out with some of the best progamers on the planet.
He could conceivably be even better than he is now
He could conceivably be worse too, that system is pretty damn regimented and doesn’t suit everyone. Byun is a really notable player who prospered more just grinding and figuring stuff out himself, both at his peak and now.
We’ve been in this new normal so long that it’s easily forgotten the barriers Serral broke. No non-Korean was ever even in the conversation for being the best player on the planet. Stephano had periods where maybe his ZvP was, Neeb took a Korean tournament with bracket that suited his strength, but they were never really the best on the planet.
Serral got into that conversation, and has bounced around number 1 to 5 world’s best players for years and years now
As I consistently say Dark is pretty underrated and would have a lot more gold to his name if his best years weren’t those of a much more stacked scene
Solar though? He’s very good but such a comparison is mental. - Basically 70% set win rate in all matchups, ZvZ is 69.80% - Serral has number 1 prize money. If you take out EU regionals entirely he’s still pretty high up the chain there - Serral has winning H2H - Serral has highest win rate ever vs Korean opposition. And this is generally with only playing better Koreans, as he rarely encounters the lower tier GSL players - He’s 13-4 against Solar - he’s 9-4 against Maru, Solar is 12-32 against Maru
It’s night and day and players like Solar and Ragnarok are very, very good
I just can’t anoint Serral the GOAT, (or others) because different eras and external factors. If Serral was throwing up the numbers he has done but 2/3 years earlier he just would be the GOAT, and people denying it would be similar to people saying Flash isn’t the BW GOAT
As it is, as I always say, unless you’re a Wayne Gretzky level talent the GOAT debate will always be well, debatable. Serral’s stomping a less deep scene than used to be the case
On July 25 2023 00:23 The_Red_Viper wrote: Serral is without a doubt one of the most, maybe THE MOST, skilled players this game has seen. Some trolls pretending that he'd just lose in the qualifiers or whatever (especially now, lol) is just bait, don't feed this nonsense. At the same time i was quite disappointed when he first said he has no interest to compete in gsl, like it or not, but korea is the mekka of starcraft, starleagues like the gsl were for most of starcraft's history the most prestigious tournaments due to the competitive level being the highest. This isn't the case any longer, as the korean scene is just a shadow of its former self (maybe it wasn't the case anymore when he first said it, arguable i guess), but it would have been very exciting to see him compete in 2018 or so, add that to his resume in some form. I never fully understood how the timeframe was too much for him, but hey ever person is different and i guess he's not comfortable outside his typical environment for 2 months, so be it.
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.
Indeed. Anyone who elevates Rogue to GOAT candidacy, but not Serral, or vice versa is talking nonsense.
If Serral’s considerable, considerable international successes (excluding WCs) count for less because the scene is less competitive, so do Rogue’s GSLs.
I’m not saying they don’t have good cases to be anywhere in the top 10, but making a case for one and not the other makes little sense. One can’t even make a case for balance given they both play Zerg.
If this new Saudi tournament actually wanted to benefit the scene they’d have ploughed money into Code S, or creating a Code S/Code A pipeline for new talent to emerge. I mean the last to do so in any meaningful way was Zoun and he’s still a Kespa veteran who took a time to really flourish
It is how it is now. If a Flash 2.0 arrived and started dominating there’d still be that competivity asterix
On July 25 2023 00:23 The_Red_Viper wrote: Serral is without a doubt one of the most, maybe THE MOST, skilled players this game has seen. Some trolls pretending that he'd just lose in the qualifiers or whatever (especially now, lol) is just bait, don't feed this nonsense. At the same time i was quite disappointed when he first said he has no interest to compete in gsl, like it or not, but korea is the mekka of starcraft, starleagues like the gsl were for most of starcraft's history the most prestigious tournaments due to the competitive level being the highest. This isn't the case any longer, as the korean scene is just a shadow of its former self (maybe it wasn't the case anymore when he first said it, arguable i guess), but it would have been very exciting to see him compete in 2018 or so, add that to his resume in some form. I never fully understood how the timeframe was too much for him, but hey ever person is different and i guess he's not comfortable outside his typical environment for 2 months, so be it.
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.
Indeed. Anyone who elevates Rogue to GOAT candidacy, but not Serral, or vice versa is talking nonsense.
If Serral’s considerable, considerable international successes (excluding WCs) count for less because the scene is less competitive, so do Rogue’s GSLs.
I’m not saying they don’t have good cases to be anywhere in the top 10, but making a case for one and not the other makes little sense. One can’t even make a case for balance given they both play Zerg.
If this new Saudi tournament actually wanted to benefit the scene they’d have ploughed money into Code S, or creating a Code S/Code A pipeline for new talent to emerge. I mean the last to do so in any meaningful way was Zoun and he’s still a Kespa veteran who took a time to really flourish
It is how it is now. If a Flash 2.0 arrived and started dominating there’d still be that competivity asterix
Hot take: Sc2's biggest problem in regards to its esport was the focus on korea, that the scene took way too long to make it interesting for foreign players, to create an environment for them where they can go allin and bring the level up on the whole. Korea simply didn't care for sc2 all that much, there was NEVER going to be any bigger new blood from korea, sc2 came out, and from then on more and more people simply retired, with an influx of 'new' players through the kespa switch, all players who were simply changing their game from bw to sc2. Same then, more and more players retiring, with noone new to challenge. It is a little more complicated than that, because games like league of legends played a big role too, young boys in korea simply played lol instead of sc2 as it was and is a lot more popular. Ofc this is true globally, but globally you have simply a LOT more potential players, korea is 50 million people. In another world where sc2 would have managed to region lock and build every scene as best as possible, we'd maybe have a scene which would be a lot healthier, mainly through the foreign scene. But then again, this is very complicated, rts not being as popular as many other genres, a big initial skill difference between the west and korea, sc2 not being a hit in korea and kespa still switching, generally just a lot of different interests to handle.
Thanks for the interview! I remember in 2018 after the Blizzcon win randomly seeing Serral and his dad in my former city's public library (I think they were hosting some esports q&a for kids?) and going up to say hi. Nice guy
Doesn't matter who is the goat, what matters is all the great games they created, anyway just look at the stats , noone can compete with the consistency Maru has had at top tier competitions, and for way longer then both Rogue and Serral. He can do it all , he is talented in every aspect of the game and is God tier at all of them.
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.
When people criticize today's competitive level in SCII they forget that the game has matured. Today's top players have 10 years of practice on their backs. The best have 22-25 years old and plays since 10-12...
We do have new players challenging the top, i.e. MaxPax, Clem, Oliveira. We just dont have as many as ins 2014-15 for 2 reasons:
1) The game has lost its peak os interest (but it has formed a stabilized pool of players)
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.
Its like tennis or F1. How long do the top players remain on top? A decade, or more. How long does it take to new names winning championships regularly? A lot! That plateau has reached SCII.
We are seeing a matured game and the their best performing for years now. Maru and Serral. Simple as that. Its like seeing Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, or Hamilton and Verstappen.
The skill ceiling has never been so high. And that does affect competitiveness.
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.
When people criticize today's competitive level in SCII they forget that the game has matured. Today's top players have 10 years of practice on their backs. The best have 22-25 years old and plays since 10-12...
We do have new players challenging the top, i.e. MaxPax, Clem, Oliveira. We just dont have as many as ins 2014-15 for 2 reasons:
1) The game has lost its peak os interest (but it has formed a stabilized pool of players)
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.
Its like tennis or F1. How long do the top players remain on top? A decade, or more. How long does it take to new names winning championships regularly? A lot! That plateau has reached SCII.
We are seeing a matured game and the their best performing for years now. Maru and Serral. Simple as that. Its like seeing Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, or Hamilton and Verstappen.
The skill ceiling has never been so high. And that does affect competitiveness.
1) directly leads to many, many players retiring way before they 'had to'. Having a stable player pool which looks like our current one is exactly the argument against the current era being all that impactful for this goat discussion in my mind. The scene isn't just past its peak, it is floating around in a quasi unsupported state, where tournaments like gsl have to crowdfund to even have offline play at all with 16 players.
2) Sure that is a valid idea to some extent, but i don't think it is "more important" at all. You compare it to scenes where something similar happened, but these scenes are very much sustainable with big interest and new players picking up the game all the time. We just had alcaraz winning wimbledon against djocovic, promising himself to be the next big deal. The scene is very much "alive". The same cannot be said for sc2, at all. That a few players come to mind is fine (though arguable to what extent they are even new blood to begin with), but it's a rather dire situation overall, a scene has to be able to sustain itself on a similar level throughout if it wants to be considered proper. Our current scene is arguably closer to something like the aoe2 circuit or the bw one in korea, more 'professional' due to some people still pumping money into it, but competitively a shadow of its former self. I don't see any way to ignore this in a goat conversation, it just doesn't make sense.
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
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 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 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.
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 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.
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 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
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 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.
EPT
2018 GSL vs. the World
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/bzJKd5m.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/ky3pnXg.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/YouveComeALongWayBaby2.jpg)
