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United States1906 Posts
On January 17 2024 05:02 Argonauta wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 04:45 Mizenhauer wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? How easily everyone forgets that Maru also lost to TY in the finals of WESG (which had the same payout as a world championship). Yes, Maru placed second in the first edition of WESG in 2017, becoming champion the following year and third place in 2019, being the only sc2 player to be part of the top4 in all 3 editions of WESG.
nice bit of pocket change 
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Northern Ireland26222 Posts
On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"?
For me it’s less that he failed to win, but how he lost some of those in frustrating manners, if you go back and read those LR threads it’s Maru fans who are Picard facepalming more than anti-fans gloating. It’s the manner of how he lost some of these tournaments, not a ‘well the bracket opened up how didn’t he win?’
soO got something of a ‘Kong’ rep for choking which I never felt was overly fair, or a Trap to a lesser degree. Sometimes you just lose to the better opponent on the day, and Maru has plenty of those. I can’t think of too many Maru chokes, but the big standout ‘what if?’ moments of his career almost all fit a pattern of ‘why is Maru choosing to do this build when his regular style is so good’, to a baffling degree.
Again it’s splitting hairs for someone with such an illustrious career!
For me he’s a standout GOAT in a prep format, and merely one of the greats in stock weekenders and big WCs. Which overall may still have him as an overall GOAT, but there is still something of a divide. On the flip side, while not overall as good Taeja was clearly a way better weekend player than a prep one.
My personal theory, and also something I think is underlooked and underdiscussed is that prep formats are a team endeavour too. So if you have deficiencies these can be covered by your boys’ strengths. Be it grinding for that week’s Proleague, or your team helping you plan and practice for a Starleague opponent. I think part of why sOs famously dismantled him one Blizzcon was that he was better at coming up with a gameplan tailored to Maru than the reverse.
Some musicians are incredible improvisers, some have to rigidly compose everything, but they can still both be excellent
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On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"?
By "on track to win", I don't mean he was dominant or the favourite of the tournament. I mean he had chances to win and then made massive uncharacteristic blunders.
2018 Katowice, he was up 2-0 in the ro4 and lost because he didn't wall off his natural properly...
2020 Katowice, he was up 2-1 in the ro4 playing bog standard then lost gambling on hellbat allins....
2021 Katowice, he was up 2-0 in the ro4 playing bog standard and lost gambling on double starport BC....
2023 Katowice, well biggest upset in SC2 history speaks for itself...
2018 Blizzcon, he said himself he believes he would have won if not for playing like a clown in the ro8...
Granted those are mostly throws in the ro4, but he would have been a huge favourite in all of those finals bar 2018 Katowice (Classic's PvT looked unbeatable, although Maru still swept him in GSL the following season).
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France12906 Posts
On January 17 2024 06:21 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? For me it’s less that he failed to win, but how he lost some of those in frustrating manners, if you go back and read those LR threads it’s Maru fans who are Picard facepalming more than anti-fans gloating. It’s the manner of how he lost some of these tournaments, not a ‘well the bracket opened up how didn’t he win?’ soO got something of a ‘Kong’ rep for choking which I never felt was overly fair, or a Trap to a lesser degree. Sometimes you just lose to the better opponent on the day, and Maru has plenty of those. I can’t think of too many Maru chokes, but the big standout ‘what if?’ moments of his career almost all fit a pattern of ‘why is Maru choosing to do this build when his regular style is so good’, to a baffling degree. Again it’s splitting hairs for someone with such an illustrious career! For me he’s a standout GOAT in a prep format, and merely one of the greats in stock weekenders and big WCs. Which overall may still have him as an overall GOAT, but there is still something of a divide. On the flip side, while not overall as good Taeja was clearly a way better weekend player than a prep one. My personal theory, and also something I think is underlooked and underdiscussed is that prep formats are a team endeavour too. So if you have deficiencies these can be covered by your boys’ strengths. Be it grinding for that week’s Proleague, or your team helping you plan and practice for a Starleague opponent. I think part of why sOs famously dismantled him one Blizzcon was that he was better at coming up with a gameplan tailored to Maru than the reverse. Some musicians are incredible improvisers, some have to rigidly compose everything, but they can still both be excellent
The sOs loss was simply PvT being P favored in macro games, but most Protoss got dismantled by Maru’s cyclone proxies since sOs helped him prepare the different variations and Maru’s execution was good enough to win with the « OP » cyclones builds (or straight up destroy Neeb with only widow mines iirc)
Obviously it wouldn’t gonna work vs sOs. After that his mental probably got shattered so he started making even more stupid mistakes like g3 (the map which had a nice tank spot in TvZ, not sure if it was the last game) but it didn’t really matter, the series was lost before hands
The big what if of viewers was « why didn’t Maru try to play a standard game vs sOs he is better than him in the macro games »; but I firmly believe he didn’t think TvP was a good MU at the time in regular macro game
Other than this « choke », most of Maru’s losses were pretty normal during World Championships. He had losses versus Zerg when Z was super strong (vs Dark afaik, and Serral in 2022).
His 2023 loss to Oliveira isn’t that weird either given the momentum Oliveira had that day, I was there in person and the crowd was pushing hard for him, only a maniac like Rogue might have been able to stop Oliveira with his offline bo7 anticlimactic magic?
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It's because maru is cocky and for good reason. This and his planning was never great, well that is, he defensively plans. He was strongest with his proxy 2 raxes. He is really ashamed to lose to a player like Time, that and the momentum became too great.
Serral solved sc2 it's that simple. The difference is there was always some changeup when players solved some parts of the game. But now sc2 is solved and it's better to be an uber defensive boring zerg now than everything else. That is unless terran keeps getting buffed.
Serral is the undisputed goat. Sc2 was at its peak level at the last blizzcon that serral won. He made it this peak, him and the guys who could challenge him.
But now we have an unbalanced game and it is fair to discredit modern serral. Not because he's worse, but because the level around him fell.
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On January 17 2024 07:37 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 06:21 WombaT wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? For me it’s less that he failed to win, but how he lost some of those in frustrating manners, if you go back and read those LR threads it’s Maru fans who are Picard facepalming more than anti-fans gloating. It’s the manner of how he lost some of these tournaments, not a ‘well the bracket opened up how didn’t he win?’ soO got something of a ‘Kong’ rep for choking which I never felt was overly fair, or a Trap to a lesser degree. Sometimes you just lose to the better opponent on the day, and Maru has plenty of those. I can’t think of too many Maru chokes, but the big standout ‘what if?’ moments of his career almost all fit a pattern of ‘why is Maru choosing to do this build when his regular style is so good’, to a baffling degree. Again it’s splitting hairs for someone with such an illustrious career! For me he’s a standout GOAT in a prep format, and merely one of the greats in stock weekenders and big WCs. Which overall may still have him as an overall GOAT, but there is still something of a divide. On the flip side, while not overall as good Taeja was clearly a way better weekend player than a prep one. My personal theory, and also something I think is underlooked and underdiscussed is that prep formats are a team endeavour too. So if you have deficiencies these can be covered by your boys’ strengths. Be it grinding for that week’s Proleague, or your team helping you plan and practice for a Starleague opponent. I think part of why sOs famously dismantled him one Blizzcon was that he was better at coming up with a gameplan tailored to Maru than the reverse. Some musicians are incredible improvisers, some have to rigidly compose everything, but they can still both be excellent The sOs loss was simply PvT being P favored in macro games, but most Protoss got dismantled by Maru’s cyclone proxies since sOs helped him prepare the different variations and Maru’s execution was good enough to win with the « OP » cyclones builds (or straight up destroy Neeb with only widow mines iirc) Obviously it wouldn’t gonna work vs sOs. After that his mental probably got shattered so he started making even more stupid mistakes like g3 (the map which had a nice tank spot in TvZ, not sure if it was the last game) but it didn’t really matter, the series was lost before hands The big what if of viewers was « why didn’t Maru try to play a standard game vs sOs he is better than him in the macro games »; but I firmly believe he didn’t think TvP was a good MU at the time in regular macro game Other than this « choke », most of Maru’s losses were pretty normal during World Championships. He had losses versus Zerg when Z was super strong (vs Dark afaik, and Serral in 2022). His 2023 loss to Oliveira isn’t that weird either given the momentum Oliveira had that day, I was there in person and the crowd was pushing hard for him, only a maniac like Rogue might have been able to stop Oliveira with his offline bo7 anticlimactic magic?
So basically Maru loses when the balance is off or he is unlucky? Well, that makes the debate truely easy ._.
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Northern Ireland26222 Posts
On January 17 2024 09:04 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 07:37 Poopi wrote:On January 17 2024 06:21 WombaT wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? For me it’s less that he failed to win, but how he lost some of those in frustrating manners, if you go back and read those LR threads it’s Maru fans who are Picard facepalming more than anti-fans gloating. It’s the manner of how he lost some of these tournaments, not a ‘well the bracket opened up how didn’t he win?’ soO got something of a ‘Kong’ rep for choking which I never felt was overly fair, or a Trap to a lesser degree. Sometimes you just lose to the better opponent on the day, and Maru has plenty of those. I can’t think of too many Maru chokes, but the big standout ‘what if?’ moments of his career almost all fit a pattern of ‘why is Maru choosing to do this build when his regular style is so good’, to a baffling degree. Again it’s splitting hairs for someone with such an illustrious career! For me he’s a standout GOAT in a prep format, and merely one of the greats in stock weekenders and big WCs. Which overall may still have him as an overall GOAT, but there is still something of a divide. On the flip side, while not overall as good Taeja was clearly a way better weekend player than a prep one. My personal theory, and also something I think is underlooked and underdiscussed is that prep formats are a team endeavour too. So if you have deficiencies these can be covered by your boys’ strengths. Be it grinding for that week’s Proleague, or your team helping you plan and practice for a Starleague opponent. I think part of why sOs famously dismantled him one Blizzcon was that he was better at coming up with a gameplan tailored to Maru than the reverse. Some musicians are incredible improvisers, some have to rigidly compose everything, but they can still both be excellent The sOs loss was simply PvT being P favored in macro games, but most Protoss got dismantled by Maru’s cyclone proxies since sOs helped him prepare the different variations and Maru’s execution was good enough to win with the « OP » cyclones builds (or straight up destroy Neeb with only widow mines iirc) Obviously it wouldn’t gonna work vs sOs. After that his mental probably got shattered so he started making even more stupid mistakes like g3 (the map which had a nice tank spot in TvZ, not sure if it was the last game) but it didn’t really matter, the series was lost before hands The big what if of viewers was « why didn’t Maru try to play a standard game vs sOs he is better than him in the macro games »; but I firmly believe he didn’t think TvP was a good MU at the time in regular macro game Other than this « choke », most of Maru’s losses were pretty normal during World Championships. He had losses versus Zerg when Z was super strong (vs Dark afaik, and Serral in 2022). His 2023 loss to Oliveira isn’t that weird either given the momentum Oliveira had that day, I was there in person and the crowd was pushing hard for him, only a maniac like Rogue might have been able to stop Oliveira with his offline bo7 anticlimactic magic? So basically Maru loses when the balance is off or he is unlucky? Well, that makes the debate truely easy ._.
Or when he’s jet lagged, or when Jupiter is out of alignment with Mars
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Canada8989 Posts
On January 17 2024 07:37 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 06:21 WombaT wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? For me it’s less that he failed to win, but how he lost some of those in frustrating manners, if you go back and read those LR threads it’s Maru fans who are Picard facepalming more than anti-fans gloating. It’s the manner of how he lost some of these tournaments, not a ‘well the bracket opened up how didn’t he win?’ soO got something of a ‘Kong’ rep for choking which I never felt was overly fair, or a Trap to a lesser degree. Sometimes you just lose to the better opponent on the day, and Maru has plenty of those. I can’t think of too many Maru chokes, but the big standout ‘what if?’ moments of his career almost all fit a pattern of ‘why is Maru choosing to do this build when his regular style is so good’, to a baffling degree. Again it’s splitting hairs for someone with such an illustrious career! For me he’s a standout GOAT in a prep format, and merely one of the greats in stock weekenders and big WCs. Which overall may still have him as an overall GOAT, but there is still something of a divide. On the flip side, while not overall as good Taeja was clearly a way better weekend player than a prep one. My personal theory, and also something I think is underlooked and underdiscussed is that prep formats are a team endeavour too. So if you have deficiencies these can be covered by your boys’ strengths. Be it grinding for that week’s Proleague, or your team helping you plan and practice for a Starleague opponent. I think part of why sOs famously dismantled him one Blizzcon was that he was better at coming up with a gameplan tailored to Maru than the reverse. Some musicians are incredible improvisers, some have to rigidly compose everything, but they can still both be excellent The sOs loss was simply PvT being P favored in macro games, but most Protoss got dismantled by Maru’s cyclone proxies since sOs helped him prepare the different variations and Maru’s execution was good enough to win with the « OP » cyclones builds (or straight up destroy Neeb with only widow mines iirc) Obviously it wouldn’t gonna work vs sOs. After that his mental probably got shattered so he started making even more stupid mistakes like g3 (the map which had a nice tank spot in TvZ, not sure if it was the last game) but it didn’t really matter, the series was lost before hands The big what if of viewers was « why didn’t Maru try to play a standard game vs sOs he is better than him in the macro games »; but I firmly believe he didn’t think TvP was a good MU at the time in regular macro game Other than this « choke », most of Maru’s losses were pretty normal during World Championships. He had losses versus Zerg when Z was super strong (vs Dark afaik, and Serral in 2022). His 2023 loss to Oliveira isn’t that weird either given the momentum Oliveira had that day, I was there in person and the crowd was pushing hard for him, only a maniac like Rogue might have been able to stop Oliveira with his offline bo7 anticlimactic magic?
Plenty of people won against a hostile crowd (if we could even say it was one). sOs stomped Jaedong in Blizzcon, Serral beat Showtime in Leipzig, Hydra beat Neeb in goddamn Texas.
I like Maru with all my heart, but that Katowice trophy felt on his lap, Solar into Ragnarok into Oliveira that's pretty much the best bracket he could have hoped for.
And obviously, it was a great run from Oliveira, but he got quite a sweet bracket himself, HM was the best draw he could have had, and then in the semi hero was also a nice match-up for him at this point of the tournament. Reynor was a very hard match, but that was the only truly surprising win from him.
I mean it's Oliveira for god sake, we've seen him play for almost a decade, we know who he is. Yeah, he can play some great Starcraft, do you know who else can play some great Starcraft? Fuc*ing Maru. How about he did it?
Damn, now I'm riled up.
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On January 17 2024 07:37 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 06:21 WombaT wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? For me it’s less that he failed to win, but how he lost some of those in frustrating manners, if you go back and read those LR threads it’s Maru fans who are Picard facepalming more than anti-fans gloating. It’s the manner of how he lost some of these tournaments, not a ‘well the bracket opened up how didn’t he win?’ soO got something of a ‘Kong’ rep for choking which I never felt was overly fair, or a Trap to a lesser degree. Sometimes you just lose to the better opponent on the day, and Maru has plenty of those. I can’t think of too many Maru chokes, but the big standout ‘what if?’ moments of his career almost all fit a pattern of ‘why is Maru choosing to do this build when his regular style is so good’, to a baffling degree. Again it’s splitting hairs for someone with such an illustrious career! For me he’s a standout GOAT in a prep format, and merely one of the greats in stock weekenders and big WCs. Which overall may still have him as an overall GOAT, but there is still something of a divide. On the flip side, while not overall as good Taeja was clearly a way better weekend player than a prep one. My personal theory, and also something I think is underlooked and underdiscussed is that prep formats are a team endeavour too. So if you have deficiencies these can be covered by your boys’ strengths. Be it grinding for that week’s Proleague, or your team helping you plan and practice for a Starleague opponent. I think part of why sOs famously dismantled him one Blizzcon was that he was better at coming up with a gameplan tailored to Maru than the reverse. Some musicians are incredible improvisers, some have to rigidly compose everything, but they can still both be excellent Other than this « choke », most of Maru’s losses were pretty normal during World Championships. He had losses versus Zerg when Z was super strong (vs Dark afaik, and Serral in 2022).
Have to disagree here. I still have Maru as number 1 all-time, but he's fumbled multiple world championships by specifically not playing normal games.
Too many ro4s at World Championships that ended with him throwing away 2-0 or 2-1 leads by doing builds that made every fan watching scream "Why Maru, why". There's no defence for the double factory hellbat allin vs Rogue, or the double port BC for vs Reynor (both times he was on match point playing his normal game)
Maybe it's the Prime terran inside him requiring a donation of 1 map per series doing something stupid.
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Northern Ireland26222 Posts
On January 17 2024 10:50 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 07:37 Poopi wrote:On January 17 2024 06:21 WombaT wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? For me it’s less that he failed to win, but how he lost some of those in frustrating manners, if you go back and read those LR threads it’s Maru fans who are Picard facepalming more than anti-fans gloating. It’s the manner of how he lost some of these tournaments, not a ‘well the bracket opened up how didn’t he win?’ soO got something of a ‘Kong’ rep for choking which I never felt was overly fair, or a Trap to a lesser degree. Sometimes you just lose to the better opponent on the day, and Maru has plenty of those. I can’t think of too many Maru chokes, but the big standout ‘what if?’ moments of his career almost all fit a pattern of ‘why is Maru choosing to do this build when his regular style is so good’, to a baffling degree. Again it’s splitting hairs for someone with such an illustrious career! For me he’s a standout GOAT in a prep format, and merely one of the greats in stock weekenders and big WCs. Which overall may still have him as an overall GOAT, but there is still something of a divide. On the flip side, while not overall as good Taeja was clearly a way better weekend player than a prep one. My personal theory, and also something I think is underlooked and underdiscussed is that prep formats are a team endeavour too. So if you have deficiencies these can be covered by your boys’ strengths. Be it grinding for that week’s Proleague, or your team helping you plan and practice for a Starleague opponent. I think part of why sOs famously dismantled him one Blizzcon was that he was better at coming up with a gameplan tailored to Maru than the reverse. Some musicians are incredible improvisers, some have to rigidly compose everything, but they can still both be excellent Other than this « choke », most of Maru’s losses were pretty normal during World Championships. He had losses versus Zerg when Z was super strong (vs Dark afaik, and Serral in 2022). Have to disagree here. I still have Maru as number 1 all-time, but he's fumbled multiple world championships by specifically not playing normal games. Too many ro4s at World Championships that ended with him throwing away 2-0 or 2-1 leads by doing builds that made every fan watching scream "Why Maru, why". There's no defence for the double factory hellbat allin vs Rogue, or the double port BC for vs Reynor (both times he was on match point playing his normal game) Maybe it's the Prime terran inside him requiring a donation of 1 map per series doing something stupid.
Yeah, and this isn’t an argument of Serral > Maru or w/e but I really don’t much recall the former ever dropping out of a tournament and my reaction being ‘the fuck were you thinking man?!’
Can’t remember off hand exactly which Kato but there was a particularly infuriating example where Maru went full unbreakable Maru and choked Reynor out masterfully, then the next set on the best map in the pool to do that again he threw out one of his ‘reverse pocket’ builds.
Everyone makes mistakes or feels the pressure, or just isn’t 100% on it in a cutthroat game where even a little off your best you get punished. I can’t think of a really top, elite player who’s quite dropped the ball on taking a world title in quite that fashion as Maru has.
It’s frustrating because I mean he’s fucking Maru, the 4th race, whose highlight reel of pure feats of micro and multitasking is so bloody impressive and has brought joy (and pain) to many of us fans!
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In my mind, Maru has the highest ceiling of executing ANY Terran build to the most optimal outcome, be it cheese, rush, aggressive or turtling, he can do it all and do it better than 99% of Terran out there. The sad thing is that when hes picking the wrong build/strategy and forced to play behind into a loss, he tends to do the same bad build again in the next game, or trying something very gambling unneccessarily.
Its was fucking frustrating to watch when he did the same Medivac Tankdrop against Oliveira 3 times in a row and lost all 3 games. Like if you know something is good, keep abusing it, or if something not working, change it. Just because hes good at eveything doesnt mean he has to prove that he can win with anything, pick the right build, damn it.
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United States33502 Posts
On January 17 2024 07:03 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? 2018 Blizzcon, he said himself he believes he would have won if not for playing like a clown in the ro8... Granted those are mostly throws in the ro4, but he would have been a huge favourite in all of those finals bar 2018 Katowice (Classic's PvT looked unbeatable, although Maru still swept him in GSL the following season).
Forgetting his SECOND SUPPLY DEPOT against sOs was one of the moments that convinced me there's an obvious big stage clutchness factor that's more meaningful than 23094839 data points from past results.
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On January 17 2024 08:05 ejozl wrote:
Serral is the undisputed goat. Sc2 was at its peak level at the last blizzcon that serral won. He made it this peak, him and the guys who could challenge him.
But now we have an unbalanced game and it is fair to discredit modern serral. Not because he's worse, but because the level around him fell.
I think you will find this thread as evidence that it is indeed disputed whether Serral is the goat. He won 2 world championships and a couple ESLs, which is impressive to be sure, but I think he's more like #3 on the list if I'm being generous to his accomplishments.
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Northern Ireland26222 Posts
On January 17 2024 16:47 Telephone wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 08:05 ejozl wrote:
Serral is the undisputed goat. Sc2 was at its peak level at the last blizzcon that serral won. He made it this peak, him and the guys who could challenge him.
But now we have an unbalanced game and it is fair to discredit modern serral. Not because he's worse, but because the level around him fell. I think you will find this thread as evidence that it is indeed disputed whether Serral is the goat. He won 2 world championships and a couple ESLs, which is impressive to be sure, but I think he's more like #3 on the list if I'm being generous to his accomplishments.
Depends if one factors in him being a foreigner and breaking that glass ceiling.
Which because it’s semi-normalised that folks are competing at that level I think almost goes a bit under the radar now, although at the time went massively over the radar (which I know isn’t a phrase).
It’s not a 100% direct equivalence, as (IMO for the good) the establishment of our current regional setup gave a solid transitional stage for talent to go and push on, that exists less in Korea.
But what Serral has achieved has (mostly) been against people playing in the most competitive region in the world, in very high quality training environments where you’re spending a lot of face time with other top players.
If a teamless Korean had done what Serral did I’d give them a few extra points too.
I know some make the case for Rogue but I think Serral’s higher consistency, the aforementioned and Rogue having a longer career by a decent span but (reasonably) similar accomplishments give him the edge for me.
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France12906 Posts
On January 17 2024 12:03 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 10:50 Fango wrote:On January 17 2024 07:37 Poopi wrote:On January 17 2024 06:21 WombaT wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? For me it’s less that he failed to win, but how he lost some of those in frustrating manners, if you go back and read those LR threads it’s Maru fans who are Picard facepalming more than anti-fans gloating. It’s the manner of how he lost some of these tournaments, not a ‘well the bracket opened up how didn’t he win?’ soO got something of a ‘Kong’ rep for choking which I never felt was overly fair, or a Trap to a lesser degree. Sometimes you just lose to the better opponent on the day, and Maru has plenty of those. I can’t think of too many Maru chokes, but the big standout ‘what if?’ moments of his career almost all fit a pattern of ‘why is Maru choosing to do this build when his regular style is so good’, to a baffling degree. Again it’s splitting hairs for someone with such an illustrious career! For me he’s a standout GOAT in a prep format, and merely one of the greats in stock weekenders and big WCs. Which overall may still have him as an overall GOAT, but there is still something of a divide. On the flip side, while not overall as good Taeja was clearly a way better weekend player than a prep one. My personal theory, and also something I think is underlooked and underdiscussed is that prep formats are a team endeavour too. So if you have deficiencies these can be covered by your boys’ strengths. Be it grinding for that week’s Proleague, or your team helping you plan and practice for a Starleague opponent. I think part of why sOs famously dismantled him one Blizzcon was that he was better at coming up with a gameplan tailored to Maru than the reverse. Some musicians are incredible improvisers, some have to rigidly compose everything, but they can still both be excellent Other than this « choke », most of Maru’s losses were pretty normal during World Championships. He had losses versus Zerg when Z was super strong (vs Dark afaik, and Serral in 2022). Have to disagree here. I still have Maru as number 1 all-time, but he's fumbled multiple world championships by specifically not playing normal games. Too many ro4s at World Championships that ended with him throwing away 2-0 or 2-1 leads by doing builds that made every fan watching scream "Why Maru, why". There's no defence for the double factory hellbat allin vs Rogue, or the double port BC for vs Reynor (both times he was on match point playing his normal game) Maybe it's the Prime terran inside him requiring a donation of 1 map per series doing something stupid. Yeah, and this isn’t an argument of Serral > Maru or w/e but I really don’t much recall the former ever dropping out of a tournament and my reaction being ‘the fuck were you thinking man?!’ Can’t remember off hand exactly which Kato but there was a particularly infuriating example where Maru went full unbreakable Maru and choked Reynor out masterfully, then the next set on the best map in the pool to do that again he threw out one of his ‘reverse pocket’ builds. Everyone makes mistakes or feels the pressure, or just isn’t 100% on it in a cutthroat game where even a little off your best you get punished. I can’t think of a really top, elite player who’s quite dropped the ball on taking a world title in quite that fashion as Maru has. It’s frustrating because I mean he’s fucking Maru, the 4th race, whose highlight reel of pure feats of micro and multitasking is so bloody impressive and has brought joy (and pain) to many of us fans!
Idk, Serral loss at last Katowice to RagnaroK doesn't feel much better than several Maru's losses. Especially the early gg timing in g5 is reminiscent of Maru vs sOs.
And Maru vs Oliveira is supposed to be close, TIME/Oliveira can play at the same level as Clem/Maru/Cure in every match-up, but he just usually had small slip-ups / lack of consistency
Him being on fire at Katowice is enough to beat every other top player
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United States1906 Posts
On January 17 2024 15:30 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 07:03 Fango wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? 2018 Blizzcon, he said himself he believes he would have won if not for playing like a clown in the ro8... Granted those are mostly throws in the ro4, but he would have been a huge favourite in all of those finals bar 2018 Katowice (Classic's PvT looked unbeatable, although Maru still swept him in GSL the following season). Forgetting his SECOND SUPPLY DEPOT against sOs was one of the moments that convinced me there's an obvious big stage clutchness factor that's more meaningful than 23094839 data points from past results.
That game may be the very worst in the Maru catalogue. Guy didn't do one thing right all game and actually did the worst possible thing in most situations.
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On January 17 2024 17:04 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 16:47 Telephone wrote:On January 17 2024 08:05 ejozl wrote:
Serral is the undisputed goat. Sc2 was at its peak level at the last blizzcon that serral won. He made it this peak, him and the guys who could challenge him.
But now we have an unbalanced game and it is fair to discredit modern serral. Not because he's worse, but because the level around him fell. I think you will find this thread as evidence that it is indeed disputed whether Serral is the goat. He won 2 world championships and a couple ESLs, which is impressive to be sure, but I think he's more like #3 on the list if I'm being generous to his accomplishments. But what Serral has achieved has (mostly) been against people playing in the most competitive region in the world, in very high quality training environments where you’re spending a lot of face time with other top players.
When Serral had his breakthrough, Kespa houses had disbanded long ago (except Jin Air) and koreans were just practicing from home like everyone else, so I don't see a disadvantage in the training environment for Serral here.
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On January 17 2024 20:42 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 17:04 WombaT wrote:On January 17 2024 16:47 Telephone wrote:On January 17 2024 08:05 ejozl wrote:
Serral is the undisputed goat. Sc2 was at its peak level at the last blizzcon that serral won. He made it this peak, him and the guys who could challenge him.
But now we have an unbalanced game and it is fair to discredit modern serral. Not because he's worse, but because the level around him fell. I think you will find this thread as evidence that it is indeed disputed whether Serral is the goat. He won 2 world championships and a couple ESLs, which is impressive to be sure, but I think he's more like #3 on the list if I'm being generous to his accomplishments. But what Serral has achieved has (mostly) been against people playing in the most competitive region in the world, in very high quality training environments where you’re spending a lot of face time with other top players. When Serral had his breakthrough, Kespa houses had disbanded long ago (except Jin Air) and koreans were just practicing from home like everyone else, so I don't see a disadvantage in the training environment for Serral here.
Has no one ever told you that narrative > facts?
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On January 17 2024 15:30 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 07:03 Fango wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? 2018 Blizzcon, he said himself he believes he would have won if not for playing like a clown in the ro8... Granted those are mostly throws in the ro4, but he would have been a huge favourite in all of those finals bar 2018 Katowice (Classic's PvT looked unbeatable, although Maru still swept him in GSL the following season). Forgetting his SECOND SUPPLY DEPOT against sOs was one of the moments that convinced me there's an obvious big stage clutchness factor that's more meaningful than 23094839 data points from past results.
Totally. There are also a lot of other examples of this with Maru, and I think it has to be factored in to any greatness analysis. To me when it comes to players that have that "X" factor, somehow Rogue felt like the most clutch player ever. I know he'd occasionally drop off, lose motivation, stop practicing, etc. but somehow when the guy got into a premier tourney finals, he almost never lost.
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On January 18 2024 01:18 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2024 15:30 Waxangel wrote:On January 17 2024 07:03 Fango wrote:On January 17 2024 03:43 Balnazza wrote:On January 17 2024 03:06 Fango wrote:On January 16 2024 21:59 Argonauta wrote:On January 16 2024 09:09 WombaT wrote:
For me the Starleague argument has nothing to do with level of opposition, and is purely a format thing. Serral’s playing the same top Koreans at internationals at the end of the day.
But it would be interesting to see how people would adjust to the slightly different demands of a prep tournament.
The flip side of this is that a weekend gauntlet is also a format, and while he’s still got some damn good results Maru has continually flubbed in brainless manner at times in said format.
There’s a flip side to arguments against certain players and their claims that has to be considered depending on what we weight. Its funny to me that this is the mantra we apply to Maru that we dont apply to any other player, Maru has won quite a few weekenders, WESG, supertournaments and King of battles. Its just that we expect him to win soo many more that the ones he has won feel like not enough. Without the 9 starleagues and arguably GOAT proleague record, Maru's weekender results would make for a legendary career on their own. But still a disappointing one. At least 5 world championships he was on track to win and threw or flubbed out of nowhere (Katowice 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and Blizzcon 2018). No one else has been that close to perfection and fumbled it (well soO has). Your definition of being "on track to win" is a bit generous, isn't it? 2018 and 2023 are the only two I would truely account for that. '18 because of his GSL titles and 2023 because he was in the finals against Oliveira. But every other tournament you mentioned it wasn't like he dominated hard or was seen as the only favorite to win it. At some point, if your level is as high as Marus, people automatically expect you to win a tournament, but that doesn't mean you are the only one who should. You can see the same with Serral: It always feels so dissappointing when he drops out in the Ro4/8, because that is just the level of respect people have. It is curious though that it feels like people never had that level of expectations for Rogue, so he never really "dissappointed"? 2018 Blizzcon, he said himself he believes he would have won if not for playing like a clown in the ro8... Granted those are mostly throws in the ro4, but he would have been a huge favourite in all of those finals bar 2018 Katowice (Classic's PvT looked unbeatable, although Maru still swept him in GSL the following season). Forgetting his SECOND SUPPLY DEPOT against sOs was one of the moments that convinced me there's an obvious big stage clutchness factor that's more meaningful than 23094839 data points from past results. Totally. There are also a lot of other examples of this with Maru, and I think it has to be factored in to any greatness analysis. To me when it comes to players that have that "X" factor, somehow Rogue felt like the most clutch player ever. I know he'd occasionally drop off, lose motivation, stop practicing, etc. but somehow when the guy got into a premier tourney finals, he almost never lost.
That is a very bad take, so you think that players playing awful series all around has less negative weight than players playing very good but having slip ups?
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