Serral claimed the third major championship of his supercharged summer, defeating Cure 4-1 in the grand finals of Master's Coliseum 6. The Finnish Phenom's dominant finals performance was a bookend to his similarly imperious start in the tournament, where he had crushed his round-of-24 group with a perfect 10-0 record.
Serral impressed in particular by ripping through Korea's formidable Terran contingent at Master's Coliseum. Not only did he defeat Cure in the finals, but he also defeated ByuN (3-1), and Maru (3-0, 2-0) in similarly one-sided matches along the way. Overwhelming macro and late-game army control were key to Serral's victories, but he also showed considerable strategic variety. In particular, his Roach play with a late third base seemed to scare his opponents off of using the trendy 2-Barracks Reaper openers—we may see more TvZ meta shifts in the coming weeks.
Zerg vs Zerg—which had been Serral's Achilles' heel in recent events—was at least temporarily overcome, as Serral defeated both Lambo and Dark in BO5 series. Luckily for Serral, Solar—who had handed him painful defeats in Gamers8 and World Team League—was luckily eliminated on the opposite side of the bracket.
Altogether, Serral put up a combined 11-1 match record with a 30-6 map score, reinforcing his current reputation as the best player in the world. His only misstep was against long-time foe Clem, who sent Serral to the losers' bracket with a 3-2 victory in the first round of the playoffs. Unfortunately for Clem, his historical strength against Serral was balanced out by one of his long-standing weaknesses, as he was eliminated 3-0 by Maru in his problem match-up of TvT.
Overall, Serral's Master's Coliseum run encapsulated his incredible present form. It's arguably his second highest peak since his initial 2018 breakthrough, with ZvZ being the only match-up coming between him and almost inevitable championships. With the international circuit quieting down for the next couple of months, fans and progamers will have to wait and see if Serral's momentum can carry over all the way to DreamHack: Atlanta.
Finals Recap
Game 1 - Dragon Scales (Cure win): Cure opened proxy 2-Barracks, and he successfully used Reapers to keep Serral's economy in check. Hellion and Battlecruiser follow-ups kept Serral on the back foot, allowing Cure to build up a powerful economic base for bio play. Cure went into a mass Marine-Marauder style, playing aggressively and never letting Serral regain his balance. Around the 11-minute mark, Cure attacked with a bio army Serral simply couldn't handle, forcing him to concede.
Game 2 - Altitude (Serral win): Game two was a late-game masterclass from Serral as he dismantled Cure's mech with fantastic spellcaster usage.
The early/mid-game stages didn't go smoothly, as Cure used effective speed-Banshee harassment to set up his mech play from an advantageous position. However, Serral managed to hold the line at four bases, slowly accruing the Infestors and Vipers needed to tackle the mech forces head on.
From there, Serral grinded his way to victory with patient and meticulous play. He gave up territory where needed, eluding the slow mech army while launching constant backdoor attacks. When he did fight, it was with an overwhelming Brood Lord + spellcaster force, which absolutely crushed the Thor-centric Cure. After a 26-minute slog, the war of attrition was finally won and Serral received Cure's surrender.
Game 3 - Babylon (Serral win): Cure opened up with a sneaky Hellbat + Marauder timing, which came close to dealing Serral a major blow. However, Serral was able to take a fighting position with his Queens in a wide arc, and ultimately stopped Cure's forces before they could get any vital Drone kills.
Cure put in a valiant effort to play out a macro game from there, but his early disadvantage was too severe to overcome. A stylish but disastrous mass Zergling drop from Serral gave Cure a slight reprieve, but it wasn't enough to change the overall flow of the game. An overwhelming Zerg tide swept over Cure, forcing another GG.
Game 4 - Gresvan (Serral win): Cure went for his most conventional macro-oriented start to the series, while Serral gave things a minor twist by playing a Muta-Ling-Bane style. Cure's initial Marine-Tank push had some success, picking off one of Serral's outer bases and forcing him to play defensively.
Often, Terran having the initiative on Gresvan sets up a 50/50 map split. However, Serral was able to impede Cure with timely counterattacks and delaying tactics on defense, and ended up taking his own half of the map before Cure could fully entrench himself.
Cure still posed a threat with his maxed out army, but Serral countered the Ghost-heavy force with Hydra-Ling-Viper-Bane. Cure simply couldn't find any kind of winning engagement in the field, and was eventually swarmed over by Serral's constant attacks.
Game 5 - NeoHumanity (Serral win): Neither side began with anything particularly tricky on the massive NeoHumanity, setting themselves up for a macro war after some token early harassment. Serral teched up quickly to Brood Lords to try and catch Cure off guard, but the move backfired when he pushed too deep into enemy territory and lost a good chunk of his army. Cure initiated a threatening counterattack, but the defender's advantage favored Serral this time and the two players ended up settling into a late-game standoff.
In a recurring trend from some of Serral's prior ZvT matches, he seized victory off of one fantastic engagement. Catching Cure's Marine-Marauder-Ghost force walking too far forward, Serral landed two huge enormous Fungal-Baneling combinations that deleted the Terran units, prompting the final GG soon.
A Protoss player even won a series against a non protoss opponent! And in the knockout stages no-less! It seems like there is hope for the brethren of aiur afterall! Now all I need for my personal satisfaction, is that they tinker with the bracket a little bit. All those zvz and tvt series are getting in the way of the fine tvz action!
On September 13 2023 22:33 DivinesiaTV wrote: Id like Artosis arguing here how Serral still aint the goat. :D
I am not saying that Serral isnt or is the GOAT, but why are we debating it base on a 40k USD online tournament? So if somebody else winning this tournament then Serral isnt the GOAT? I find it annoying that fans are using a couple of smaller tournament to justify their case. In my view, whoever between Maru and Serral won Gamers8 should take the lead in the GOAT debate, but neither did. So lets wait till ESL Winter and the World Championship Having said that, hes undoubtedly the best player in 2023 so far (4 title won), and his style look very strong.
I think it is definetly cool that while Serral is by far the most dominant player of the year, he still can be beaten, though apparently not by the super-favorites like himself.
On September 13 2023 23:42 Balnazza wrote: I think it is definetly cool that while Serral is by far the most dominant player of he year, he still can be beaten, though apparently not by the super-favorites like himself.
Agreed. Serral isn't the dominant unstoppable player like he was back then. For him, this is somewhat of a "slump". For others, this would be the highlight of their careers.
On September 13 2023 23:42 Balnazza wrote: I think it is definetly cool that while Serral is by far the most dominant player of the year, he still can be beaten, though apparently not by the super-favorites like himself.
The top 10 nowadays is pretty stacked. Serral, Maru, Reynor, Clem, herO, Byun, Cure, Solar, Dark and MaxPax... All of them are always title contenders.
Gamers8, for an example: Semifinals was held between the 5h-8th places from the group stages. 1st to 4th all fell in round of 8.
Premier tournaments with global participation have been pretty cool to watch.
On September 13 2023 23:42 Balnazza wrote: I think it is definetly cool that while Serral is by far the most dominant player of the year, he still can be beaten, though apparently not by the super-favorites like himself.
The top 10 nowadays is pretty stacked. Serral, Maru, Reynor, Clem, herO, Byun, Cure, Solar, Dark and MaxPax... All of them are always title contenders.
Gamers8, for an example: Semifinals was held between the 5h-8th places from the group stages. 1st to 4th all fell in round of 8.
Premier tournaments with global participation have been pretty cool to watch.
The only title contenders out of them are Serral, Reynor and Maru...
Congratulations Serral, didn’t expect less. A bit annoying that he basically only loses ZvZ but I guess terrans haven’t figured out a way to beat zerg consistently yet
On September 14 2023 05:11 Poopi wrote: Congratulations Serral, didn’t expect less. A bit annoying that he basically only loses ZvZ but I guess terrans haven’t figured out a way to beat zerg consistently yet
Playoffs had 4 zvt matches in the first round. Terrans won them all.
On September 13 2023 23:42 Balnazza wrote: I think it is definetly cool that while Serral is by far the most dominant player of the year, he still can be beaten, though apparently not by the super-favorites like himself.
The top 10 nowadays is pretty stacked. Serral, Maru, Reynor, Clem, herO, Byun, Cure, Solar, Dark and MaxPax... All of them are always title contenders.
Between Serral and Maru there is like a 90% chance they win. All the others have a combined 10% chance IMO
On September 13 2023 23:42 Balnazza wrote: I think it is definetly cool that while Serral is by far the most dominant player of the year, he still can be beaten, though apparently not by the super-favorites like himself.
The top 10 nowadays is pretty stacked. Serral, Maru, Reynor, Clem, herO, Byun, Cure, Solar, Dark and MaxPax... All of them are always title contenders.
Between Serral and Maru there is like a 90% chance they win. All the others have a combined 10% chance IMO
I mean Reynor won the most important tournament that happened recently (at least money wise, but there is no more legacy tournaments except maybe Katowice anymore), so I don't think that's a fair statement Plus I don't see Maru beat Serral on this patch/map pool, so he gotta pray that a zerg eliminates him beforehands, he is in the others with the combined 10% chance
I'd say if it's an important tournament (with enough prizepool etc.) it's 40% Serral - 40% Reynor - 20% rest of top players combined
On September 13 2023 23:42 Balnazza wrote: I think it is definetly cool that while Serral is by far the most dominant player of the year, he still can be beaten, though apparently not by the super-favorites like himself.
The top 10 nowadays is pretty stacked. Serral, Maru, Reynor, Clem, herO, Byun, Cure, Solar, Dark and MaxPax... All of them are always title contenders.
Between Serral and Maru there is like a 90% chance they win. All the others have a combined 10% chance IMO
I mean Reynor won the most important tournament that happened recently (at least money wise, but there is no more legacy tournaments except maybe Katowice anymore), so I don't think that's a fair statement Plus I don't see Maru beat Serral on this patch/map pool, so he gotta pray that a zerg eliminates him beforehands, he is in the others with the combined 10% chance
I'd say if it's an important tournament (with enough prizepool etc.) it's 40% Serral - 40% Reynor - 20% rest of top players combined
Fair. Reynor's big tournament beastmode is incredible. But if he can't find that mode he mostly "just" finishes top 8 Same with Maru (GSL mode) and Mary (non GSL mode). And Serral got three modes: Godlike make it look easy mode. Slumpmode has to work for it, will probably still win every game but it's close and maybe he'll lose a ZvZ WTF mode. Loses a close ZvT or god forbid a ZvP
Now, this tournament is a perfect example why we cant take an individual tourney to gauge a player's ability. Had this tourney not been double bracket (in playoffs), Serral would have dropped out in Ro8, and Maru would have been top 12 instead of top4.
On September 13 2023 22:33 DivinesiaTV wrote: Id like Artosis arguing here how Serral still aint the goat. :D
winning an online tournament in 2023 makes him the Goat?
Are you saying that Serral cant win offline tournaments ?? :O.
No, where did you read that? I said this tournament barely has an impact on whether or not he's the Goat.
It moves the needle, albeit slightly.
Serral’s entire claim is periods of dominance and relentless consistency. He can’t for example have any claim based on prospering at the peak era of competitiveness in the game’s history because he wasn’t there.
Also another two wins against Maru to further extend their H2H in his favour. Less significant if it were a minor tourney and it’s pushed it slightly in his favour, he’s really gapping Maru in this metric now.
As I’m on record as saying many times I don’t think you can crown a singular GOAT, too many incomparable eras and scenes really. If there was an SC2 version of BW Flash sure but we don’t really have that.
Serral’s certainly up there in that conversation, but I think he does increasingly have a hard to dispute claim as SC2’s most relentlessly consistent top level performer, and here’s another small piece of that jigsaw
On September 15 2023 19:39 Locutus_ wrote: Now, this tournament is a perfect example why we cant take an individual tourney to gauge a player's ability. Had this tourney not been double bracket (in playoffs), Serral would have dropped out in Ro8, and Maru would have been top 12 instead of top4.
Players play to a format, we can’t just retrospectively go back through and treat them as a single elim format or whatever.
It introduces various variables into the equation. Does every player play equally as well in a winner’s bracket where they know they have another life, versus one loss and you’re out single elim for example?
This tournament is a perfect example why single elimination tournaments are more exciting - in double elim tourneys you know Serral will most probably win, he almost never loses two matches in the same tourney unless he's in a real bad form.
On September 13 2023 22:33 DivinesiaTV wrote: Id like Artosis arguing here how Serral still aint the goat. :D
winning an online tournament in 2023 makes him the Goat?
Are you saying that Serral cant win offline tournaments ?? :O.
No, where did you read that? I said this tournament barely has an impact on whether or not he's the Goat.
It moves the needle, albeit slightly.
Serral’s entire claim is periods of dominance and relentless consistency. He can’t for example have any claim based on prospering at the peak era of competitiveness in the game’s history because he wasn’t there.
Also another two wins against Maru to further extend their H2H in his favour. Less significant if it were a minor tourney and it’s pushed it slightly in his favour, he’s really gapping Maru in this metric now.
As I’m on record as saying many times I don’t think you can crown a singular GOAT, too many incomparable eras and scenes really. If there was an SC2 version of BW Flash sure but we don’t really have that.
Serral’s certainly up there in that conversation, but I think he does increasingly have a hard to dispute claim as SC2’s most relentlessly consistent top level performer, and here’s another small piece of that jigsaw
On September 15 2023 19:39 Locutus_ wrote: Now, this tournament is a perfect example why we cant take an individual tourney to gauge a player's ability. Had this tourney not been double bracket (in playoffs), Serral would have dropped out in Ro8, and Maru would have been top 12 instead of top4.
Players play to a format, we can’t just retrospectively go back through and treat them as a single elim format or whatever.
It introduces various variables into the equation. Does every player play equally as well in a winner’s bracket where they know they have another life, versus one loss and you’re out single elim for example?
He's the most consistent top performer but only in smaller events. In the GSL he never participated and in world championship tier events his record is okay but not as good as others. Counting IEM Katowice, Blizzcon, WESG and gamers8 he has won 2 out 13 attempts which is good but not as good as sOs/Rogue. Considering he has never participated in the other highly prestigious circuit and factoring in the era he played in, I have a hard time calling him the de-facto Goat. Tbf Neither Maru or Rogue can be called the de-facto Goat imo, I think there just isn't a Goat in sc2.
The tournament is small, but looking at the actual players he defeated along the way, it's one hell of the run. The top 4 Korean Terran in Maru, Byun, Cure and Gumiho, the best Korean Zerg in Dark, one of the best online Protoss in MaxPax. He went 20-3 on maps against some of the best players in the world.
One of the biggest arguments for Serral's GOAT claim is his domination over his peers. Aside of Rogue which has an equal h2h record with Serral, he holds a positive h2h record against literally every single top player in his era, and the ratio is mostly very one sided. You can talk about GSL all day but all those GSL players always get destroyed by Serral when they meet on international stage.
On September 19 2023 02:42 Nasigil wrote: The tournament is small, but looking at the actual players he defeated along the way, it's one hell of the run. The top 4 Korean Terran in Maru, Byun, Cure and Gumiho, the best Korean Zerg in Dark, one of the best online Protoss in MaxPax. He went 20-3 on maps against some of the best players in the world.
One of the biggest arguments for Serral's GOAT claim is his domination over his peers. Aside of Rogue which has an equal h2h record with Serral, he holds a positive h2h record against literally every single top player in his era, and the ratio is mostly very one sided. You can talk about GSL all day but all those GSL players always get destroyed by Serral when they meet on international stage.
On September 19 2023 02:42 Nasigil wrote: The tournament is small, but looking at the actual players he defeated along the way, it's one hell of the run. The top 4 Korean Terran in Maru, Byun, Cure and Gumiho, the best Korean Zerg in Dark, one of the best online Protoss in MaxPax. He went 20-3 on maps against some of the best players in the world.
One of the biggest arguments for Serral's GOAT claim is his domination over his peers. Aside of Rogue which has an equal h2h record with Serral, he holds a positive h2h record against literally every single top player in his era, and the ratio is mostly very one sided. You can talk about GSL all day but all those GSL players always get destroyed by Serral when they meet on international stage.
I mean, he got taken out of the world championship by a zerg that didn’t manage to qualify for this season of GSL. Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever, although it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
On September 19 2023 02:42 Nasigil wrote: The tournament is small, but looking at the actual players he defeated along the way, it's one hell of the run. The top 4 Korean Terran in Maru, Byun, Cure and Gumiho, the best Korean Zerg in Dark, one of the best online Protoss in MaxPax. He went 20-3 on maps against some of the best players in the world.
One of the biggest arguments for Serral's GOAT claim is his domination over his peers. Aside of Rogue which has an equal h2h record with Serral, he holds a positive h2h record against literally every single top player in his era, and the ratio is mostly very one sided. You can talk about GSL all day but all those GSL players always get destroyed by Serral when they meet on international stage.
I mean, he got taken out of the world championship by a zerg that didn’t manage to qualify for this season of GSL. Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever, although it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
I mean...some of the best teams and players in the world across sports sometimes have losing records against much weaker teams/players. It just happens. Pretty sure if Maru had the choice to always lose against either Serral or Solar, he would pick Solar 10 out of 10 times
Amazing performance by Serral. In this tournament alone, he beat the current GSL champion 5-0, cumulatively (Maru), the current GSL runner-up 3-1 (Dark), and the other current top 4 GSL players 4-1 and 2-0 (Cure and Gumiho, respectively).
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever
No, it does not. No zerg other than Serral, not even Reynor, and still less any one of the GSL zergs or the other top EU zergs, displays a level of dominance against terran and protoss even remotely close to that of Serral.
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
You cannot seriously believe that the reason why no other zerg player, not even Reynor, is as consistent as Serral is that they "only bother when there are huge sums of money". What would that even mean? In the current state of the game, Master's Coliseum is one of the largest tournaments of the year, and virtually every S-tier player did, in fact, play in it. Furthermore, please tell me, who, besides Reynor, are those other zerg "players like Reynor", who could play like Serral if only they bothered? How many of them did win even a single major tournament this year?
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
Serral's performance in the last WTL season was one of if not the single best performance any player has ever delivered in the history of WTL Code S. It's abstruse to attempt to twist this into an argument against him. He went 30-4 overall. And on the final day, where, according to you, "he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win", he all-killed Abydos, the third-strongest team in WTL Code S, before proceeding to 2-0 Maru. Then, after going 9-0 in maps, he lost a single ZvZ.
On September 19 2023 02:42 Nasigil wrote: The tournament is small, but looking at the actual players he defeated along the way, it's one hell of the run. The top 4 Korean Terran in Maru, Byun, Cure and Gumiho, the best Korean Zerg in Dark, one of the best online Protoss in MaxPax. He went 20-3 on maps against some of the best players in the world.
One of the biggest arguments for Serral's GOAT claim is his domination over his peers. Aside of Rogue which has an equal h2h record with Serral, he holds a positive h2h record against literally every single top player in his era, and the ratio is mostly very one sided. You can talk about GSL all day but all those GSL players always get destroyed by Serral when they meet on international stage.
I mean, he got taken out of the world championship by a zerg that didn’t manage to qualify for this season of GSL. Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever, although it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
Lol now you are just talking out of your arse and you know it
On September 19 2023 02:42 Nasigil wrote: The tournament is small, but looking at the actual players he defeated along the way, it's one hell of the run. The top 4 Korean Terran in Maru, Byun, Cure and Gumiho, the best Korean Zerg in Dark, one of the best online Protoss in MaxPax. He went 20-3 on maps against some of the best players in the world.
One of the biggest arguments for Serral's GOAT claim is his domination over his peers. Aside of Rogue which has an equal h2h record with Serral, he holds a positive h2h record against literally every single top player in his era, and the ratio is mostly very one sided. You can talk about GSL all day but all those GSL players always get destroyed by Serral when they meet on international stage.
I mean, he got taken out of the world championship by a zerg that didn’t manage to qualify for this season of GSL. Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever, although it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
Solar is only notorious for early GSL exits because he’s quite good, it wouldn’t be notable otherwise.
And Serral generally smacks him around anyway, this post really feels a super stretch. Serral is carried by Z OP but others aren’t close to as dominant because they’re not trying most of the time? Come on dude
On September 19 2023 02:42 Nasigil wrote: The tournament is small, but looking at the actual players he defeated along the way, it's one hell of the run. The top 4 Korean Terran in Maru, Byun, Cure and Gumiho, the best Korean Zerg in Dark, one of the best online Protoss in MaxPax. He went 20-3 on maps against some of the best players in the world.
One of the biggest arguments for Serral's GOAT claim is his domination over his peers. Aside of Rogue which has an equal h2h record with Serral, he holds a positive h2h record against literally every single top player in his era, and the ratio is mostly very one sided. You can talk about GSL all day but all those GSL players always get destroyed by Serral when they meet on international stage.
I mean, he got taken out of the world championship by a zerg that didn’t manage to qualify for this season of GSL. Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever, although it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
Solar is only notorious for early GSL exits because he’s quite good, it wouldn’t be notable otherwise.
And Serral generally smacks him around anyway, this post really feels a super stretch. Serral is carried by Z OP but others aren’t close to as dominant because they’re not trying most of the time? Come on dude
Every zerg is far more dominant in ZvP/ZvT than they are at ZvZ ; plus Reynor is also dominant in the big tournaments (gamers8). Solar is quite good indeed, but that's kinda proof that Serral doesn't always "destroy GSL players in every international tournaments", just the T/P.
It's alright to have different opinions on why he has far better vT/vP than vZ though
Also, Serral isn't carried by Z op, he is still the best zerg in the world by a comfortable margin, but his vT/vP record is a bit inflated by zerg being strong
On September 19 2023 02:42 Nasigil wrote: The tournament is small, but looking at the actual players he defeated along the way, it's one hell of the run. The top 4 Korean Terran in Maru, Byun, Cure and Gumiho, the best Korean Zerg in Dark, one of the best online Protoss in MaxPax. He went 20-3 on maps against some of the best players in the world.
One of the biggest arguments for Serral's GOAT claim is his domination over his peers. Aside of Rogue which has an equal h2h record with Serral, he holds a positive h2h record against literally every single top player in his era, and the ratio is mostly very one sided. You can talk about GSL all day but all those GSL players always get destroyed by Serral when they meet on international stage.
I mean, he got taken out of the world championship by a zerg that didn’t manage to qualify for this season of GSL. Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever, although it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
Solar is only notorious for early GSL exits because he’s quite good, it wouldn’t be notable otherwise.
And Serral generally smacks him around anyway, this post really feels a super stretch. Serral is carried by Z OP but others aren’t close to as dominant because they’re not trying most of the time? Come on dude
Every zerg is far more dominant in ZvP/ZvT than they are at ZvZ ; plus Reynor is also dominant in the big tournaments (gamers8). Solar is quite good indeed, but that's kinda proof that Serral doesn't always "destroy GSL players in every international tournaments", just the T/P.
It's alright to have different opinions on why he has far better vT/vP than vZ though
Also, Serral isn't carried by Z op, he is still the best zerg in the world by a comfortable margin, but his vT/vP record is a bit inflated by zerg being strong
It’s just quite a volatile matchup, when Serral first went god mode if anything it was his ZvZ that was his strongest. It’s certainly not a pure coin flip either, but it’s not as stable a meta as it’s been at times. When the meta was reliably just roach wars into lurker/viper and that suited Serral he was pretty darn dominant there until Reynor rose up.
Shades of how Maru went from being invincible to merely top tier in TvT when that Raven change happened.
You couldn’t really build a better matchup for how Serral plays the game and what Serral’s strengths are than ZvP right now. Figure out what your opponent is doing and counter it and any trickery.
Hopefully herO can flip his weird trajectory and get back to where he was shortly after returning, and Classic can continue his more predictable gradual improvement, Stats too and we might have something he can do. The mysterious MaxPax keeps getting better.
It’s been a while, really since Trap was at his pomp and Zest was bringing some new build every Katowice that other top Zergs, never mind Serral the final boss of ZvP were having much regular trouble in the matchup.
On September 19 2023 13:36 Antithesis wrote: Amazing performance by Serral. In this tournament alone, he beat the current GSL champion 5-0, cumulatively (Maru), the current GSL runner-up 3-1 (Dark), and the other current top 4 GSL players 4-1 and 2-0 (Cure and Gumiho, respectively).
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever
No, it does not. No zerg other than Serral, not even Reynor, and still less any one of the GSL zergs or the other top EU zergs, displays a level of dominance against terran and protoss even remotely close to that of Serral.
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
You cannot seriously believe that the reason why no other zerg player, not even Reynor, is as consistent as Serral is that they "only bother when there are huge sums of money". What would that even mean? In the current state of the game, Master's Coliseum is one of the largest tournaments of the year, and virtually every S-tier player did, in fact, play in it. Furthermore, please tell me, who, besides Reynor, are those other zerg "players like Reynor", who could play like Serral if only they bothered? How many of them did win even a single major tournament this year?
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
Serral's performance in the last WTL season was one of if not the single best performance any player has ever delivered in the history of WTL Code S. It's abstruse to attempt to twist this into an argument against him. He went 30-4 overall. And on the final day, where, according to you, "he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win", he all-killed Abydos, the third-strongest team in WTL Code S, before proceeding to 2-0 Maru. Then, after going 9-0 in maps, he lost a single ZvZ.
Thank you! Holy shit, that original comment was basically saying "lol Serral only has 90% win rate, not even 100%, what a scrub"
And yes, I am not exaggerating, Serral's winnrate this year is 90% in series, and that's including his disappointing early exit on IEM Katowice.
People really are trying to discredit Serral in the most moronic way possible.
On September 19 2023 13:36 Antithesis wrote: Amazing performance by Serral. In this tournament alone, he beat the current GSL champion 5-0, cumulatively (Maru), the current GSL runner-up 3-1 (Dark), and the other current top 4 GSL players 4-1 and 2-0 (Cure and Gumiho, respectively).
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever
No, it does not. No zerg other than Serral, not even Reynor, and still less any one of the GSL zergs or the other top EU zergs, displays a level of dominance against terran and protoss even remotely close to that of Serral.
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
You cannot seriously believe that the reason why no other zerg player, not even Reynor, is as consistent as Serral is that they "only bother when there are huge sums of money". What would that even mean? In the current state of the game, Master's Coliseum is one of the largest tournaments of the year, and virtually every S-tier player did, in fact, play in it. Furthermore, please tell me, who, besides Reynor, are those other zerg "players like Reynor", who could play like Serral if only they bothered? How many of them did win even a single major tournament this year?
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
Serral's performance in the last WTL season was one of if not the single best performance any player has ever delivered in the history of WTL Code S. It's abstruse to attempt to twist this into an argument against him. He went 30-4 overall. And on the final day, where, according to you, "he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win", he all-killed Abydos, the third-strongest team in WTL Code S, before proceeding to 2-0 Maru. Then, after going 9-0 in maps, he lost a single ZvZ.
Thank you! Holy shit, that original comment was basically saying "lol Serral only has 90% win rate, not even 100%, what a scrub"
And yes, I am not exaggerating, Serral's winnrate this year is 90% in series, and that's including his disappointing early exit on IEM Katowice.
People really are trying to discredit Serral in the most moronic way possible.
It’s pretty bloody absurd, what’s his set rate? :O
Honestly, and I’m pretty sure most other veterans will remember this, consensus was for many years of the game that a winrate like that over such an extended period just wasn’t possible.
The game was too volatile, not quite as hard as BW, faster by degrees than WC3. Games where you had, and still sometimes have really dominant players. BW is just so difficult mechanically that even today there’s appreciable gaps between top players. WC3 it’s pretty hard to cheese a player at the tip top level, and because fights are a lot slower the guy with better micro tends to always make that count, versus SC2 where it’s very fast so even the best can botch a 10 second engagement, or have their screen the wrong place.
It is a pretty silly win rate, with all it entails. Serral has basically had to correctly identify and read and respond to every kind of wonky prepared allin or cheese AND win the majority of straight-up macro games, over such an extended period.
Remarkable stuff really. Even his ladder performance is historically staggering
It’s just a pity that various timelines didn’t quite align, it would be fascinating to have seen how this version of Serral got on at the tip top Kespa era.
On September 19 2023 13:36 Antithesis wrote: Amazing performance by Serral. In this tournament alone, he beat the current GSL champion 5-0, cumulatively (Maru), the current GSL runner-up 3-1 (Dark), and the other current top 4 GSL players 4-1 and 2-0 (Cure and Gumiho, respectively).
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: Beating terrans and protoss as easily and still being that vulnerable to supposedly lesser zergs just smell like zerg being as strong as ever
No, it does not. No zerg other than Serral, not even Reynor, and still less any one of the GSL zergs or the other top EU zergs, displays a level of dominance against terran and protoss even remotely close to that of Serral.
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: it’s impressive to do it consistently whereas players like Reynor only bother when there are huge sums of money
You cannot seriously believe that the reason why no other zerg player, not even Reynor, is as consistent as Serral is that they "only bother when there are huge sums of money". What would that even mean? In the current state of the game, Master's Coliseum is one of the largest tournaments of the year, and virtually every S-tier player did, in fact, play in it. Furthermore, please tell me, who, besides Reynor, are those other zerg "players like Reynor", who could play like Serral if only they bothered? How many of them did win even a single major tournament this year?
On September 19 2023 05:38 Poopi wrote: Similarly, he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win because of Solar, who is notorious for getting eliminated early on in the GSL over and over again
Serral's performance in the last WTL season was one of if not the single best performance any player has ever delivered in the history of WTL Code S. It's abstruse to attempt to twist this into an argument against him. He went 30-4 overall. And on the final day, where, according to you, "he didn’t manage to carry Basilisk into a WTL win", he all-killed Abydos, the third-strongest team in WTL Code S, before proceeding to 2-0 Maru. Then, after going 9-0 in maps, he lost a single ZvZ.
Thank you! Holy shit, that original comment was basically saying "lol Serral only has 90% win rate, not even 100%, what a scrub"
And yes, I am not exaggerating, Serral's winnrate this year is 90% in series, and that's including his disappointing early exit on IEM Katowice.
People really are trying to discredit Serral in the most moronic way possible.
Exactly my thoughts!
I mean it's fine to have an opinion and it's okay to have a debate about GOATs and so on but to say "lol Serral lost a whole match this year in an important tournament, what a loser" is just shittalking.
Serral has the best winrate in all of WTL history and then complaining about Serral didn't carry hard enough? Come on dude, get your head ouf of your behind
From Nakajins tournament write-up:
Serral's victory gave BASILISK the first ever 7-0 all-kill in the WTL era, with Dream having last achieved such a result in 2020 when the tournament was known as the Gold Series Team Championship. Individually, Serral improved to an unbelievable 30-1 in the regular season and playoffs combined, easily the best performance in WTL history up to that point. The only thing left was to complete the Royal Road run against ONSYDE Gaming.
[/QUOTE] It’s pretty bloody absurd, what’s his set rate? :O
Honestly, and I’m pretty sure most other veterans will remember this, consensus was for many years of the game that a winrate like that over such an extended period just wasn’t possible.
The game was too volatile, not quite as hard as BW, faster by degrees than WC3. Games where you had, and still sometimes have really dominant players. BW is just so difficult mechanically that even today there’s appreciable gaps between top players. WC3 it’s pretty hard to cheese a player at the tip top level, and because fights are a lot slower the guy with better micro tends to always make that count, versus SC2 where it’s very fast so even the best can botch a 10 second engagement, or have their screen the wrong place.
It is a pretty silly win rate, with all it entails. Serral has basically had to correctly identify and read and respond to every kind of wonky prepared allin or cheese AND win the majority of straight-up macro games, over such an extended period.
Remarkable stuff really. Even his ladder performance is historically staggering
It’s just a pity that various timelines didn’t quite align, it would be fascinating to have seen how this version of Serral got on at the tip top Kespa era.
[/QUOTE]
Set rate is 80%, still an obscenely high number. This is probably the most dominant run of any player in SC2 history in my memory.
Oliveira (who regularly practices with Serral) recently commentates on the Serral vs Clem series in the Chinese stream of PiG Sty 4.0, somewhere in the middle he said Serral has the matchup figured out inside out now, down to every last detail, "balance council, just release the new patch already, it's impossible to beat this man in current meta"
It’s pretty bloody absurd, what’s his set rate? :O
Honestly, and I’m pretty sure most other veterans will remember this, consensus was for many years of the game that a winrate like that over such an extended period just wasn’t possible.
The game was too volatile, not quite as hard as BW, faster by degrees than WC3. Games where you had, and still sometimes have really dominant players. BW is just so difficult mechanically that even today there’s appreciable gaps between top players. WC3 it’s pretty hard to cheese a player at the tip top level, and because fights are a lot slower the guy with better micro tends to always make that count, versus SC2 where it’s very fast so even the best can botch a 10 second engagement, or have their screen the wrong place.
It is a pretty silly win rate, with all it entails. Serral has basically had to correctly identify and read and respond to every kind of wonky prepared allin or cheese AND win the majority of straight-up macro games, over such an extended period.
Remarkable stuff really. Even his ladder performance is historically staggering
It’s just a pity that various timelines didn’t quite align, it would be fascinating to have seen how this version of Serral got on at the tip top Kespa era.
[/QUOTE]
Set rate is 80%, still an obscenely high number. This is probably the most dominant run of any player in SC2 history in my memory.
Oliveira (who regularly practices with Serral) recently commentates on the Serral vs Clem series in the Chinese stream of PiG Sty 4.0, somewhere in the middle he said Serral has the matchup figured out inside out now, down to every last detail, "balance council, just release the new patch already, it's impossible to beat this man in current meta" [/QUOTE]
It’s pretty bloody absurd, what’s his set rate? :O
Honestly, and I’m pretty sure most other veterans will remember this, consensus was for many years of the game that a winrate like that over such an extended period just wasn’t possible.
The game was too volatile, not quite as hard as BW, faster by degrees than WC3. Games where you had, and still sometimes have really dominant players. BW is just so difficult mechanically that even today there’s appreciable gaps between top players. WC3 it’s pretty hard to cheese a player at the tip top level, and because fights are a lot slower the guy with better micro tends to always make that count, versus SC2 where it’s very fast so even the best can botch a 10 second engagement, or have their screen the wrong place.
It is a pretty silly win rate, with all it entails. Serral has basically had to correctly identify and read and respond to every kind of wonky prepared allin or cheese AND win the majority of straight-up macro games, over such an extended period.
Remarkable stuff really. Even his ladder performance is historically staggering
It’s just a pity that various timelines didn’t quite align, it would be fascinating to have seen how this version of Serral got on at the tip top Kespa era.
Set rate is 80%, still an obscenely high number. This is probably the most dominant run of any player in SC2 history in my memory.
Oliveira (who regularly practices with Serral) recently commentates on the Serral vs Clem series in the Chinese stream of PiG Sty 4.0, somewhere in the middle he said Serral has the matchup figured out inside out now, down to every last detail, then he adds "balance council, just release the new patch already, it's impossible to beat this man in current meta"
Yeah hard to deny that Serral right now is the most dominant player the game has ever seen. Only asterisks are that it's at a time where most of the other Goat contenders are already retired/declined and that he "failed" at the two biggest events of the year with two ro8 exists. But his overall performance since Katowice is Flash-like with gamers8 as an outlier.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/CTC/WTL2023Winter/mastersc2023bracket2.png)
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/CTC/WTL2023Summer/mastersc2023groupresults.png)
