On January 15 2024 00:39 LostUsername100 wrote: If you win a tournament, you didn't beat everyone, you didn't even necessarily have the best win record in the tournament, SC2 tournaments are a shitshow of luck with single elimination rounds.
Also giving more points for players being on "their prime" is absurd.
Just choose whoever you want to be whatever rank lmao.
This video is still probably the most objective attempt at answering who is the goat:
I would like to see the raw data he used for that video. What is each players career timespan, what is he counting as premier? It doesn't simply seem to be what is listed on liquipedia because some things seem odd to me like Maru only having exactly 1 premier win per year of his career on average. Serral having 58 top 4s in premiers also seems questionable. Though that might be possible since he has so many in events that banned Koreans. And the way he calculated winrates will naturally favor players who started more recently which he does point out but I think he's underestimating the degree.
Any list that doesn't at least somewhat weight premiers even non world championships differently from each other is also flawed imo. An IEM Shanghai is harder than IEM pyeongchan, a Dreamhack with Koreans is a lot harder than a region locked dreamhack.
Even though Aligulac has serious flaws I think the best way to create a tournament ranking and then goat ranking would be to look at each tournament and check Aligulac ranking history on the closest possible date and if the tournament has 32 players ask out of the top 32 on aligulac how many are in this event? Do that for all events and the tournaments with the highest percentage get weighted the highest and then calculate goat by awarding points for tournament results based on that list. That is an objective way to determine tournament difficulty I only wish we had a better ELO system to use.
Your last paragraph is a good idea but it's short sighted, a tournament with Serral & Clem and a bunch of scrubs is much harder to win than a tournanent with with every player from R3 to R29, also just "wins" is silly as well.
Aligulac has very little flaws, people just don't like the result it gives.
On January 15 2024 00:39 LostUsername100 wrote: If you win a tournament, you didn't beat everyone, you didn't even necessarily have the best win record in the tournament, SC2 tournaments are a shitshow of luck with single elimination rounds.
Also giving more points for players being on "their prime" is absurd.
Just choose whoever you want to be whatever rank lmao.
This video is still probably the most objective attempt at answering who is the goat:
I would like to see the raw data he used for that video. What is each players career timespan, what is he counting as premier? It doesn't simply seem to be what is listed on liquipedia because some things seem odd to me like Maru only having exactly 1 premier win per year of his career on average. Serral having 58 top 4s in premiers also seems questionable. Though that might be possible since he has so many in events that banned Koreans. And the way he calculated winrates will naturally favor players who started more recently which he does point out but I think he's underestimating the degree.
Any list that doesn't at least somewhat weight premiers even non world championships differently from each other is also flawed imo. An IEM Shanghai is harder than IEM pyeongchan, a Dreamhack with Koreans is a lot harder than a region locked dreamhack.
Even though Aligulac has serious flaws I think the best way to create a tournament ranking and then goat ranking would be to look at each tournament and check Aligulac ranking history on the closest possible date and if the tournament has 32 players ask out of the top 32 on aligulac how many are in this event? Do that for all events and the tournaments with the highest percentage get weighted the highest and then calculate goat by awarding points for tournament results based on that list. That is an objective way to determine tournament difficulty I only wish we had a better ELO system to use.
Your last paragraph is a good idea but it's short sighted, a tournament with Serral & Clem and a bunch of scrubs is much harder to win than a tournanent with with every player from R3 to R29, also just "wins" is silly as well.
Aligulac has very little flaws, people just don't like the result it gives.
To add to my questioning of that video according to liquipedia Serral only has 45 top 4s in premier events. Considering that a bunch of those top 4s happened after that video was posted at well I think that video has to be completely discounted unless he explained his data elsewhere.
Serral and Clem are not harder to beat than the rest of the top 30 combined. Even thinking of it in a bracket context do you really think it's harder to beat those 2 back to back than a back to back run of something like: Solar/herO/Cure/Dark/Maru? That's a pretty absurd statement and ironically I think all you have to do is look at Clems own career to prove that false. He did very well in EU regionals but only just won his first global event after being a top player for years. It also doesn't holdup under historical context because the gap between the best has historically been much smaller than it is now.
Aligulac has a ton of flaws. Why does winning in one matchup give points to the others? Inactive players stay too high. Rating inflation is way too big compared to other ELO systems I think it's due to aligulac giving too many points for beating players who have significantly less points. SC2 pro scene has only existed for 13 years and player ratings have nearly tripled which makes no sense whatsoever and makes it almost impossible to use it to compare eras. This isn't aligulac specific but ELO also has issues comparing people from different player pools that don't interact much.
Serral's achievements have one asterisk though - a lot of them were from zerg-dominated 2019-2021 era.
Remember that time before Rogue retirement (and Dark somewhat slumping) where 4 top zerg players would win 80% of big tournaments, and if you remove Serral - it would still most probably be a zerg champion?
Serral was never called "the last zerg standing", his peak overlapped with zerg race peak balance-wise.
On January 15 2024 06:37 ZeroByte13 wrote: Serral's achievements have one asterisk though - a lot of them were from zerg-dominated 2019-2021 era.
Remember that time before Rogue retirement (and Dark somewhat slumping) where 4 top zerg players would win 80% of big tournaments, and if you remove Serral - it would still most probably be a zerg champion?
Serral was never called "the last zerg standing", his peak overlapped with zerg race peak balance-wise.
That’s a big asterisk indeed. Rogue too, and Rogue was not particularly dominant until 2017+ (hydras got buffed that year as well), so I doubt Rogue will top this list even though his trophy count is the highest of all players
On January 15 2024 00:39 LostUsername100 wrote: If you win a tournament, you didn't beat everyone, you didn't even necessarily have the best win record in the tournament, SC2 tournaments are a shitshow of luck with single elimination rounds.
Also giving more points for players being on "their prime" is absurd.
Just choose whoever you want to be whatever rank lmao.
This video is still probably the most objective attempt at answering who is the goat:
I would like to see the raw data he used for that video. What is each players career timespan, what is he counting as premier? It doesn't simply seem to be what is listed on liquipedia because some things seem odd to me like Maru only having exactly 1 premier win per year of his career on average. Serral having 58 top 4s in premiers also seems questionable. Though that might be possible since he has so many in events that banned Koreans. And the way he calculated winrates will naturally favor players who started more recently which he does point out but I think he's underestimating the degree.
Any list that doesn't at least somewhat weight premiers even non world championships differently from each other is also flawed imo. An IEM Shanghai is harder than IEM pyeongchan, a Dreamhack with Koreans is a lot harder than a region locked dreamhack.
Even though Aligulac has serious flaws I think the best way to create a tournament ranking and then goat ranking would be to look at each tournament and check Aligulac ranking history on the closest possible date and if the tournament has 32 players ask out of the top 32 on aligulac how many are in this event? Do that for all events and the tournaments with the highest percentage get weighted the highest and then calculate goat by awarding points for tournament results based on that list. That is an objective way to determine tournament difficulty I only wish we had a better ELO system to use.
Your last paragraph is a good idea but it's short sighted, a tournament with Serral & Clem and a bunch of scrubs is much harder to win than a tournanent with with every player from R3 to R29, also just "wins" is silly as well.
Aligulac has very little flaws, people just don't like the result it gives.
To add to my questioning of that video according to liquipedia Serral only has 45 top 4s in premier events. Considering that a bunch of those top 4s happened after that video was posted at well I think that video has to be completely discounted unless he explained his data elsewhere.
Serral and Clem are not harder to beat than the rest of the top 30 combined. Even thinking of it in a bracket context do you really think it's harder to beat those 2 back to back than a back to back run of something like: Solar/herO/Cure/Dark/Maru? That's a pretty absurd statement and ironically I think all you have to do is look at Clems own career to prove that false. He did very well in EU regionals but only just won his first global event after being a top player for years. It also doesn't holdup under historical context because the gap between the best has historically been much smaller than it is now.
Aligulac has a ton of flaws. Why does winning in one matchup give points to the others? Inactive players stay too high. Rating inflation is way too big compared to other ELO systems I think it's due to aligulac giving too many points for beating players who have significantly less points. SC2 pro scene has only existed for 13 years and player ratings have nearly tripled which makes no sense whatsoever and makes it almost impossible to use it to compare eras. This isn't aligulac specific but ELO also has issues comparing people from different player pools that don't interact much.
"Even thinking of it in a bracket context do you really think it's harder to beat those 2 back to back than a back to back run of something like: Solar/herO/Cure/Dark/Maru?"
A bracket run is usually Ro8,Ro4,Ro2 so really you only need to beat 3 of those, the "swiss" tournament stages or group tournaments are a lot fairer and less luck prone.
Odds of cure beating serral & clem back to back in a bo5 is <3% per Aligulac.
On January 15 2024 06:37 ZeroByte13 wrote: Serral's achievements have one asterisk though - a lot of them were from zerg-dominated 2019-2021 era.
Remember that time before Rogue retirement (and Dark somewhat slumping) where 4 top zerg players would win 80% of big tournaments, and if you remove Serral - it would still most probably be a zerg champion?
Serral was never called "the last zerg standing", his peak overlapped with zerg race peak balance-wise.
Serral also doesn't have any starleague titles, which this criteria is considering as equivalent or near-equivalent to world championships.
He also never played in proleague, and never competed on a high level in WoL or HotS. It seems silly to hold that against him, but you also can't ignore it for INno and Maru who dominated in both proleague and HotS,
Serral beats everyone head to head, but the list is greatest of all time, not best of all time. Those guys have big achievements that Serral doesn't
On January 15 2024 06:37 ZeroByte13 wrote: Serral's achievements have one asterisk though - a lot of them were from zerg-dominated 2019-2021 era.
Remember that time before Rogue retirement (and Dark somewhat slumping) where 4 top zerg players would win 80% of big tournaments, and if you remove Serral - it would still most probably be a zerg champion?
Serral was never called "the last zerg standing", his peak overlapped with zerg race peak balance-wise.
Serral also doesn't have any starleague titles, which this criteria is considering as equivalent or near-equivalent to world championships.
He also never played in proleague, and never competed on a high level in WoL or HotS. It seems silly to hold that against him, but you also can't ignore it for INno and Maru who dominated in both proleague and HotS,
Serral beats everyone head to head, but the list is greatest of all time, not best of all time. Those guys have big achievements that Serral doesn't
"Serral also doesn't have any starleague titles, which this criteria is considering as equivalent or near-equivalent to world championships. "
Yea this is a ridiculous criteria and favours people who live in Korea.
On January 15 2024 06:37 ZeroByte13 wrote: Serral's achievements have one asterisk though - a lot of them were from zerg-dominated 2019-2021 era.
Remember that time before Rogue retirement (and Dark somewhat slumping) where 4 top zerg players would win 80% of big tournaments, and if you remove Serral - it would still most probably be a zerg champion?
Serral was never called "the last zerg standing", his peak overlapped with zerg race peak balance-wise.
Serral also doesn't have any starleague titles, which this criteria is considering as equivalent or near-equivalent to world championships.
He also never played in proleague, and never competed on a high level in WoL or HotS. It seems silly to hold that against him, but you also can't ignore it for INno and Maru who dominated in both proleague and HotS,
Serral beats everyone head to head, but the list is greatest of all time, not best of all time. Those guys have big achievements that Serral doesn't
"Serral also doesn't have any starleague titles, which this criteria is considering as equivalent or near-equivalent to world championships. "
Yea this is a ridiculous criteria and favours people who live in Korea.
So what would you recommend, just ignore them? Rank 14 years of the games history based on only events Serral played in?
Historically starleagues have been the most competitive tournaments with the greatest player pools. For a lot of SC2's history they were significantly more competitive than the world championships. Not to mention they test preparation skills that other tournaments don't. That's an entire meta and format that Serral never attempted (Neeb, Reynor, Scarlett and others still did).
I have no doubt Serral could win multiple GSLs, but he chose not to. When comparing his achievements to players who have won 3,4, or 7 starleagues, that's something they have over him.
Region locked tournaments are pretty worthless for the GOAT conversation when the majority of the best players in the world aren't allowed to compete in them.
On January 15 2024 16:56 Telephone wrote: Region locked tournaments are pretty worthless for the GOAT conversation when the majority of the best players in the world aren't allowed to compete in them.
I didnt read the methodology but this needs to be the first thing in there otherwise any ranking is just nonsense. Affirmative action titles are just like affirmative action degrees: worthless.
Reading the rest of the comments, I'm 90% sure in 2030 when korean sc2 is all but a distant memory, there will be unironic arguments that clem or reynor is the goat since they won every major tournament in the last 5 years and "no one has ever had that level of dominance". people will argue "the game is even harder now than it was in 2021 because [insert some micro mechanic or build people didnt do back then]" even though the competition will be literally between 3 guys, well sort of like the EPT weekly now.
despite all the calls that i'm a (non-korean) korean shill (and i prob am one), I actually think Serral has the edge over anyone else. And the primary reason for that is actually military service. People don't realize how career ending that is, (out of those who tried, virtually not a single one could return to their previous level.) I dont think anyone who is "forcibly retired" can ever have the hardware to compete against someone who doesnt (and don't cite Serral's "summer camp" service coming up).
On January 15 2024 16:56 Telephone wrote: Region locked tournaments are pretty worthless for the GOAT conversation when the majority of the best players in the world aren't allowed to compete in them.
I didnt read the methodology but this needs to be the first thing in there otherwise any ranking is just nonsense. Affirmative action titles are just like affirmative action degrees: worthless.
Reading the rest of the comments, I'm 90% sure in 2030 when korean sc2 is all but a distant memory, there will be unironic arguments that clem or reynor is the goat since they won every major tournament in the last 5 years and "no one has ever had that level of dominance". people will argue "the game is even harder now than it was in 2021 because [insert some micro mechanic or build people didnt do back then]" even though the competition will be literally between 3 guys, well sort of like the EPT weekly now.
despite all the calls that i'm a (non-korean) korean shill (and i prob am one), I actually think Serral has the edge over anyone else. And the primary reason for that is actually military service. People don't realize how career ending that is, (out of those who tried, virtually not a single one could return to their previous level.) I dont think anyone who is "forcibly retired" can ever have the hardware to compete against someone who doesnt (and don't cite Serral's "summer camp" service coming up).
Yeah, no. WC3 is in that situation and I don't think many people really call Happy "the GOAT", even though his level of dominance in the game truely is unseen. But of course the competitiveness is so much down the toilet compared to even the last year before the release of SC2 that it is hard to compare him with the likes of Grubby, Sky or Moon at the height of the game.
You are correct, military service is career-shattering. But on the other hand, "being korean" is also a huge plus. Or more accurate: Being in the korean scene. You mentioned Life a few times and wanted to point out him winning with 14 while Serral with 15 was still "so bad" - that isn't a question of raw talent alone, but hugely impacted by the enviroment. Not only was Life already in a Proleague-teamhouse by that time (though granted, not for long), but that isn't even the big thing: I promise you, if Life was born in Finland, he wouldn't have won shit with 14. Not only (especially ten-ish years ago) would most european parents not allow their child to focus so much on gaming at that age, but the logistics alone to get to big tournaments is much higher compared to SK, where everything is neately focused in one studio. And honestly, maybe even child-labour laws might be a problem. Or simply the fact that some tournaments at that time might still have been age-locked (you needed to be 16 to compete in the german EPS for example).
It is not the players fault to be raised in a blessed (well, "blessed") gaming enviroment, but you should always have that in mind aswell, to maybe put some of the more extreme feats into perspective.
On January 15 2024 16:56 Telephone wrote: Region locked tournaments are pretty worthless for the GOAT conversation when the majority of the best players in the world aren't allowed to compete in them.
I didnt read the methodology but this needs to be the first thing in there otherwise any ranking is just nonsense. Affirmative action titles are just like affirmative action degrees: worthless.
Reading the rest of the comments, I'm 90% sure in 2030 when korean sc2 is all but a distant memory, there will be unironic arguments that clem or reynor is the goat since they won every major tournament in the last 5 years and "no one has ever had that level of dominance". people will argue "the game is even harder now than it was in 2021 because [insert some micro mechanic or build people didnt do back then]" even though the competition will be literally between 3 guys, well sort of like the EPT weekly now.
despite all the calls that i'm a (non-korean) korean shill (and i prob am one), I actually think Serral has the edge over anyone else. And the primary reason for that is actually military service. People don't realize how career ending that is, (out of those who tried, virtually not a single one could return to their previous level.) I dont think anyone who is "forcibly retired" can ever have the hardware to compete against someone who doesnt (and don't cite Serral's "summer camp" service coming up).
Yeah, no. WC3 is in that situation and I don't think many people really call Happy "the GOAT", even though his level of dominance in the game truely is unseen. But of course the competitiveness is so much down the toilet compared to even the last year before the release of SC2 that it is hard to compare him with the likes of Grubby, Sky or Moon at the height of the game.
You are correct, military service is career-shattering. But on the other hand, "being korean" is also a huge plus. Or more accurate: Being in the korean scene. You mentioned Life a few times and wanted to point out him winning with 14 while Serral with 15 was still "so bad" - that isn't a question of raw talent alone, but hugely impacted by the enviroment. Not only was Life already in a Proleague-teamhouse by that time (though granted, not for long), but that isn't even the big thing: I promise you, if Life was born in Finland, he wouldn't have won shit with 14. Not only (especially ten-ish years ago) would most european parents not allow their child to focus so much on gaming at that age, but the logistics alone to get to big tournaments is much higher compared to SK, where everything is neately focused in one studio. And honestly, maybe even child-labour laws might be a problem. Or simply the fact that some tournaments at that time might still have been age-locked (you needed to be 16 to compete in the german EPS for example).
It is not the players fault to be raised in a blessed (well, "blessed") gaming enviroment, but you should always have that in mind aswell, to maybe put some of the more extreme feats into perspective.
It would still be pretty crazy to call sky or grubby better than happy seeing how he has been dominant for 7 years in a row even if the competitiveness might be lower, he faced th000, Infi, Lyn, focus, none of them were out of shape and newcomers like 120 had nothing to envy to the big name of the past. Especially considering he was dominant while playing with 180-200 ping in a good chunk of tourney, happy's performance is truly goatesque.
On January 15 2024 20:58 Poopi wrote: Isn’t Moon the obvious GOAT of WC3?
I always thought so, since he reigned supreme in the competitive era when WC3 was the mainstream RTS
I would say he still is the greatest thanks to his influence and overall impact in the game and even esport scene as a whole. But happy is the best.
Yeah, best and greatest are cousins not twins. Sure they’re related but there’s a bit of distance.
Greatness is a much more emotional thing, being the best is more cold, more objective.
Mvp’s greatness is cemented more by him and Squirtle going down to the wire and that final game with everything on the line than if he’d coldly swept him:
Greatness is being outmatched, having serious wrist issues, changing your playstyle and still taking Life to the wire. Being the best is having a winning head to head against everyone, playing consistently incredibly and even though it’s low stakes being so absurdly good on ladder that even very, very good pros are only losing an amount of MMR you can count on one hand if they fail to topple you.
*Editor’s note* - I’m not saying either way if Serral is the ‘best’, just an illustrative example that came to mind.
On January 15 2024 06:37 ZeroByte13 wrote: Serral's achievements have one asterisk though - a lot of them were from zerg-dominated 2019-2021 era.
Remember that time before Rogue retirement (and Dark somewhat slumping) where 4 top zerg players would win 80% of big tournaments, and if you remove Serral - it would still most probably be a zerg champion?
Serral was never called "the last zerg standing", his peak overlapped with zerg race peak balance-wise.
That’s a big asterisk indeed. Rogue too, and Rogue was not particularly dominant until 2017+ (hydras got buffed that year as well), so I doubt Rogue will top this list even though his trophy count is the highest of all players
Wasnt Rogue called patchzerg in an article here in TL because his wins were based on that hydra patch that mega favored zerg but once it was Serral, finally a foreigner that could compite in equal terms with the koreans, the one winning everything suddenly zerg was fine? It was.a skill issue not a balance issue?
Narrative wise was quite blatant the bias that casters conveniently choose to forget because it was good for the game.
On January 15 2024 06:37 ZeroByte13 wrote: Serral's achievements have one asterisk though - a lot of them were from zerg-dominated 2019-2021 era.
Remember that time before Rogue retirement (and Dark somewhat slumping) where 4 top zerg players would win 80% of big tournaments, and if you remove Serral - it would still most probably be a zerg champion?
Serral was never called "the last zerg standing", his peak overlapped with zerg race peak balance-wise.
That’s a big asterisk indeed. Rogue too, and Rogue was not particularly dominant until 2017+ (hydras got buffed that year as well), so I doubt Rogue will top this list even though his trophy count is the highest of all players
Wasnt Rogue called patchzerg in an article here in TL because his wins were based on that hydra patch that mega favored zerg but once it was Serral, finally a foreigner that could compite in equal terms with the koreans, the one winning everything suddenly zerg was fine? It was.a skill issue not a balance issue?
Narrative wise was quite blatant the bias that casters conveniently choose to forget because it was good for the game.
Serral is a top player but he too benefited from zerg being strong / very strong. I am a bit flabbergasted that so many viewers in the european (and french) scene think that Serral is the "obvious" GOAT of Starcraft 2 despite all the history of the game. But for the majority of viewers, casters can push any narrative they want so it's not that surprising
edit: to add something about Rogue, iirc when Neeb was the first foreigner to win a tournament on KR soil, beating Rogue wasn't considered particularly impressive because Rogue wasn't a top player yet, however beating Zest & Stats (+ Trap but Trap wasn't considered a top protoss yet either afaik) and winning the whole thing was a big deal
On January 15 2024 16:56 Telephone wrote: Region locked tournaments are pretty worthless for the GOAT conversation when the majority of the best players in the world aren't allowed to compete in them.
I didnt read the methodology but this needs to be the first thing in there otherwise any ranking is just nonsense. Affirmative action titles are just like affirmative action degrees: worthless.
Reading the rest of the comments, I'm 90% sure in 2030 when korean sc2 is all but a distant memory, there will be unironic arguments that clem or reynor is the goat since they won every major tournament in the last 5 years and "no one has ever had that level of dominance". people will argue "the game is even harder now than it was in 2021 because [insert some micro mechanic or build people didnt do back then]" even though the competition will be literally between 3 guys, well sort of like the EPT weekly now.
despite all the calls that i'm a (non-korean) korean shill (and i prob am one), I actually think Serral has the edge over anyone else. And the primary reason for that is actually military service. People don't realize how career ending that is, (out of those who tried, virtually not a single one could return to their previous level.) I dont think anyone who is "forcibly retired" can ever have the hardware to compete against someone who doesnt (and don't cite Serral's "summer camp" service coming up).
Yeah, no. WC3 is in that situation and I don't think many people really call Happy "the GOAT", even though his level of dominance in the game truely is unseen. But of course the competitiveness is so much down the toilet compared to even the last year before the release of SC2 that it is hard to compare him with the likes of Grubby, Sky or Moon at the height of the game.
You are correct, military service is career-shattering. But on the other hand, "being korean" is also a huge plus. Or more accurate: Being in the korean scene. You mentioned Life a few times and wanted to point out him winning with 14 while Serral with 15 was still "so bad" - that isn't a question of raw talent alone, but hugely impacted by the enviroment. Not only was Life already in a Proleague-teamhouse by that time (though granted, not for long), but that isn't even the big thing: I promise you, if Life was born in Finland, he wouldn't have won shit with 14. Not only (especially ten-ish years ago) would most european parents not allow their child to focus so much on gaming at that age, but the logistics alone to get to big tournaments is much higher compared to SK, where everything is neately focused in one studio. And honestly, maybe even child-labour laws might be a problem. Or simply the fact that some tournaments at that time might still have been age-locked (you needed to be 16 to compete in the german EPS for example).
It is not the players fault to be raised in a blessed (well, "blessed") gaming enviroment, but you should always have that in mind aswell, to maybe put some of the more extreme feats into perspective.
It would still be pretty crazy to call sky or grubby better than happy seeing how he has been dominant for 7 years in a row even if the competitiveness might be lower, he faced th000, Infi, Lyn, focus, none of them were out of shape and newcomers like 120 had nothing to envy to the big name of the past. Especially considering he was dominant while playing with 180-200 ping in a good chunk of tourney, happy's performance is truly goatesque.
There was this news station in Canada that ran a story about the kid that reached the kill screen in Tetris, something that had never been accomplished in the history of the game. An absolutely insane feat, if you understand the skill/practice required. And then at the end of the segment, the news anchor told the kid to go outside. If people want to understand how gaming as a profession is viewed in the West by the mainstream, there you have it. A little different than coming of age in the Mecca of e-sports.
EPT
2016 KeSPA Cup
