No, the series didn't lead to the community reaching a harmonious consensus, but it was a fantastic way to look back on competitive StarCraft II history and celebrate its most accomplished players.
Eight years after stuchiu named Mvp the GOAT, Mizenhauer has decided to take a shot at creating an updated list. His approach and viewpoints are entirely different, but it's no less appreciative of StarCraft II history. Who will make the top ten cutoff this time around?
• Double-World Championship Winner in 2017 (IEM & WESG) • 4 Code S Finals appearances, 2 Championships • Top 2 Korean Individual League win-rate during five-year prime
Notable tournament finishes
2016 GSL Code S Season 1: 2nd place
2016 (2017*) World Electronic Esports Games: 1st place
2017 IEM Katowice: 1st place
2017 GSL vs The World: 2nd place
2018 Code S Season 3: 2nd place
2019 GSL Super Tournament 1: 2nd place
2020 Code S Season 1: 1st place
2020 Code S Season 3: 1st place
TY secures his place among the greatest players in StarCraft II ever through historic bursts of brilliance paired with tremendous long-term consistency.
His first career-defining run came in in 2017, when he won the IEM Katowice and WESG world championships in the span of two months. Later, in 2020, TY matched that achievement in Korea by winning two Code S championships in the same year.
TY's longevity and consistency are just as impressive as his peaks. He played at a championship-contender level for nearly six years, and recorded one of the most outstanding win-rates in major Korean tournaments during the LotV era.
Strategic genius and a deep understanding of StarCraft II were the keys to TY's success. He was a build order artisan, with his creations ranging from deadly timing attacks to rock-solid macro set-ups. He was also a master of positional play and understanding win conditions—something that made him one of the few players who could credibly use mech at the highest level. More importantly, it helped make him one of the best, if not the best, TvT player ever.
Career Overview: Bloom late, but bloom long
TY's success in StarCraft II was the long-delayed denouement of a journey that started during his childhood. Even in a profession characterized by youth and a 'candle burning at both ends' mentality towards careers, TY was considered a prodigy. His first notable result was finishing second in 2003's HanbitSoft King of the Star Contest in SC: Brood War… …at the tender age of 8. By 2007, he had made the first-team roster of Proleague team WeMade FOX, and he recorded his first Proleague win that year at the age of 13. Aptly, his ID during this period was BaBy.
Unfortunately for young TY, he couldn't live up to the considerable hype around him. Rather than greatness, he had to settle for merely decent. The move to StarCraft II gave many KeSPA players a chance to revitalize their careers, but TY remained on the same track of mediocrity for his first three years in SC2.
A young TY debuts in Proleague by elder abusing defeating veteran player DaezanG.
However, in 2015, the eight year of his professional career, TY took the first strides towards realizing his prophesied greatness. He achieved a career-best top eight finish in GSL Code S, followed by an even better top four finish in the SSL (barely losing 3-4 to ByuL in the semifinals). When Legacy of the Void was released in 2016, TY took things to the next level. After failing to ever reach the finals of a major event in his career, TY finally broke through in the very first Season of Code S to be played in Legacy of the Void. TY entered the finals that season on a ten game win streak, and was only stopped by an even hotter Zest (who had put up a 18-1 map score in Code A/S). The dam had already broken, however, and championships were soon to come.
In the main event of World Electronic Sports Games 2016 (actually played in January of 2017), TY finally went all the way. With a dramatic 4-3 win over Maru in the grand finals, TY claimed the enormous $200,000 first place prize and won his first ever major title. Combined with additional wins over Maru, Rogue, soO, and INnoVation in the WESG qualifiers, TY had clearly ascended to a new level.
With the WESG title in hand, TY hit the jackpot again at the IEM World Championship held two months later. TY flattered to deceive during the RO24, and narrowly dodged elimination with a 3-2 record. However, he came alive in the playoffs, taking down Zest, GuMiho (who in the near future would win Code S), and aLive on his way to the finals. Even Stats' vaunted defense couldn't stop TY's date with destiny, and a two base Tank push in game seven sealed TY's second world championship win.
TY even made a world championship triple-crown seem like a possibility at BlizzCon, up until the point he went up 2-0 against Rogue in the semifinals. However, StarCraft II's ultimate big-match player pulled off the reverse sweep, and forced TY to 'settle' for 1st/1st/4th in world championship tournaments that year.
Unimpressed at winning $100,000 because he already won $200,00 back at WESG?
Despite these impressive showings in world championship events, a Korean Individual League championship (Code S, OSL, SSL) did not come easily to TY. After his runner-up finish to Zest in 2016, his second Code S title shot came over two years later in Season 3 of 2018. This time, he was facing off against Maru—who was on the verge of making history by winning Code S for the third consecutive season. TY looked like he might bring the streak to an end when he took a 2-0 lead, but the invincible, 2018 version of Maru wouldn't be denied and won in a 4-3 comeback victory.
After that, TY would have to wait even longer to get another chance to win a Code S championship. Still, even without a Korean Individual League title, TY maintained a very high level of consistency through the years, constantly achieving high finishes in both domestic and international events. However, he was slowly becoming in danger of becoming remembered as somewhat of a one-hit wonder, a player who would never again reach his early 2017 peak (he also acquired an ignominious reputation as a player who frequently gave up reverse-sweeps).
TY refused such an ignominious fate, and made 2020 his year of triumph. He began the first season of Code S in 2020 in typical fashion, easily advancing to the RO8 as his years of steady play had led us to expect. After sweeping Dark in the RO8, TY faced a surprising RO4 opponent in the form of PartinG. The Big Boy had caused the upset of the tournament in the previous round by defeating Maru, but whatever worked so well against Maru was ineffective against TY. TY went up 3-0 to start, and after surviving a spirited comeback and reverse-sweep scare from PartinG, he took a 4-2 victory after a late-game masterclass in game six.
TY had the misfortune of facing off against prime Zest and Maru in his first two Code S finals appearances, but the third time was the charm as he got to face a first-time GSL finalist in Cure. The experience mismatch was apparent in the finals, and TY took the 4-0 sweep to finally win the Korean major title to put a capstone on his career.
Can you put a capstone on a capstone? Because TY wasn't done just yet. Like his world championships, his Code S titles came in pairs. He failed to defend his title in the very next season, but he still came up with an excellent result by finishing in the top four (losing to Stats in the semis). Then, in Season 3, TY struck gold again.
TY attended the very first LotV major at DreamHack Winter 2015.
TY breezed through the group stage once more, and continued to show impressive play by sweeping both DongRaeGu and Stats in the first two rounds of the playoffs. His finals opponent would be none other than his old nemesis Maru. TY had defeated Maru for the WESG grand prize in 2017, but Maru had won their Code S finals duel in 2018—this would be the rubber match.
There were some extra stakes beyond the Code S title. Maru had previously defeated TY on his way to Code S championship number three, and this time he was playing for StarCraft II's version of the sword in the stone—the G5L trophy for five Code S championships. Many fans tuned in wondering if it would finally be Maru's coronation day, but instead, they saw him become the co-star in TY's most impressive finals performance yet.
The series between the two best TvT players in the world featured excellent play throughout, with a late-game thriller on Deathaura and a crazy basetrade on Golden Wall being the highlights. However, in the end, TY left no doubt as to who was the better player on the day, clinching the 4-2 victory. Three years after he went 1st/1st/4th in world championships, TY repeated the feat in the GSL and recorded one of the most successful years ever in domestic competition.
One quirk about these championships is the fact that TY was one of the GSL's official casters at the time. While the two-days-a-week gig probably wasn't an enormous distraction for TY, it's still noteworthy that he's the only player to ever commentate and win GSL in the same season.
The rest of TY’s 2020 and 2021 campaigns were dotted with quarter and semifinal appearances, reaffirming his all around solidity. However, we would not get a chance to see if TY could reenter the championship picture. He began his military service in mid-2021, departing from the scene while he was still close to the top of his game.
That wasn't the end of TY's progamer journey, but it was the end of his time as a top-tier player. He returned from military service in 2023, but the rust has been very apparent in his gameplay. Still, he gave us one of the more notable 'class is eternal' moments, reaching the top eight of Code S Season 2 2023 in a performance that seemed to surprise even himself.
In any case, TY doesn't need to add to his resume to affirm himself as one of the best players ever in StarCraft II. He may have been a late bloomer, but he made the wait well worth it by achieving enormous success on both the international and domestic stages.
The Tools: Strategy and Mind Games
As one might expect for a Terran who was scouted to a pro-team as a teenager, TY possessed tremendous mechanical talent. It's a testament to his strategic brilliance that his mechanics are perhaps the second or third point fans bring up when they talk about his strengths.
TY was a master of build order mindgames, constantly trying to find an edge by researching and out-planning his opponents. And, while he did have some of that 'if I just play my perfect macro game I'll win' mentality that nearly all elite players possess, he was also fantastic at adapting and changing his gameplan depending on his opponents' play. Having such a deep strategic bag made him equally adept with mech or bio, and with all-ins or macro, making him one of the most versatile Terran players ever.
TY also took series planning to a new level, which was especially highlighted in his two Code S championship runs. He was keen to abuse every inch of terrain on a specific map, and could alter his approach wildly depending on the opponent. Additionally, TY was incredible at roping his opponents into the game state he had intended—'macro against weaker players and cheese stronger players' is much easier said than done, but TY pulled off this kind of gameplan exceptionally well.
The Numbers: World Championship Peak + Domestic Durability
World championship-tierᵃ tournament winners 2011 to present
a: While there is no firm formula for determining a world championship-tier event, both prize money and strength of field are taken into consideration. b: WESG tournaments are assigned to the year the grand finals was actually played, not the official date on the tournament title (which is one year early). c: The 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2016 IEM world championships were of lesser scale compared to other iterations. d: Player was later banned for match-fixing in unrelated tournaments. ESL still recognizes YoDa as the 2013 winner; Blizzard stripped Life of his title.
World championships play a huge part in deciding a players' legacy, and TY was one of the most successful players ever in this regard. Only sOs and Rogue stand above TY with three world championship-tier tournament wins, while Reynor and Serral are the only other players who can match TY's two victories in these outsized events.
Korean Individual League (Code S, OSL, SSLᵃ) finishes Start of 2016 to July 2021 (TY's military enlistment)
a: SSL 2017 was excluded due its 10-player format b: The Code S opening round was the RO32 during 2016-2019, RO24 in 2020, and RO16 in 2021. Thus, RO16 finishes in 2021 are counted as "Opening Round" finishes. Also, the 2020 season of Code S gave the previous season's top four players direct seeds into the RO16. c: Includes one RO16 finish in Code S 2021.
While winning big money at world championships is certainly eye-catching, TY's success in domestic competition is an equally important part of his career resume. Starting in Legacy of the Void and up to his first 'retirement' due to military service, TY won two Code S championships and achieved an RO8 or higher finish in 13 of the 17 seasons in which he participated. This 76%+ RO8 attainment rate in Code S represents tremendous stability even when compared to the very best of TY's contemporaries.
In the same time frame, Stats made it to the quarterfinals or higher in 9 of 18 attempts (40%). Dark did so in 10 out of 19 seasons (53%). The infamously inconsistent Rogue only went to the RO8 or higher in 8 out of 17 seasons (47%). Even Maru, who won four Code S titles during this time, was 10 for 17 when it came to reaching the RO8 or higher (58%).
Korean Individual League (Code S, OSL, SSLᵃ) win-loss records Start of 2016 to July 2021 (TY's military enlistment)
a: SSL 2017 was excluded due its 10-player format b: SSL 2016 Season 1 was held in a double-elimination bracket format c: The starting number of players in Code S was 32 during 2016-2019, 28 in 2020, and 16 in 2021
TY's consistent strength is also apparent in his overall win-loss record in Korean Individual Leagues. From the start of LotV up until his military service, he was neck-and-neck with Maru in terms of having the best statistics. TY's map win-rate of 64.9% (170W-92L) was slightly head of Maru's 63.8% (166W-94L), while his series win-rate of 69.8% (60W-26L) was second only to Maru's 73.2% (60W-22). When it comes to Dark, Stats, and Rogue, the other top players during this time frame, their win-rates all trail slightly or considerably behind TY.
TY owes a lot of his domestic success to his mastery in TvT. Not only was it the match-up in which he won his two Code S finals, but he actually has the highest career TvT map win-rate in Code S history at 72.2%. To put that into perspective, the only player who comes close is Mvp at 67.2%, and his career ended just as TY's was getting started.
Selected head-to-head statistics (offline + online) Start of 2016 to July 2021 (TY's military enlistment)
Another notch in TY's belt is his strong head-to-head record against his peers during his prime. Other than Dark, TY often got the better of the best players of his era, and in some cases he dominated them. He had significant head-to-head advantages against INnoVation, Stats, and Rogue, while also holding a slight edge over Maru.
As TY's career really took off in 2017 after the end of Proleague, his teamleague statistics are not a meaningful part of his GOAT list case. During his time on KT Rolster, TY was a solid but not notably strong Proleague competitor.
The Placement
TY and #10 player Rain are similar for their consistent, high-level play in Korean Individual Leagues, and their list of top-four finishes is very similar (TY: 2x first place, 2x second place, 2x RO4 finishes // Rain: 2x first place, 1x second place, 3x RO4).
However, TY gets the nod for ninth place by surpassing Rain in a couple of key areas. The biggest differentiating factor was TY's results in world championship-tier tournaments—TY won both IEM and WESG, while Rain's best result was top 3 at BWC/WCS 2012. Also, TY's stretch of consistently great domestic play lasted for five years, compared to Rain's three and a half. Overall, TY was the obvious choice to slot in right ahead of Rain.
The Games
Games were selected primarily based on how well they represented a players' style, not entertainment value.
TY vs herO: 2014 Proleague Round 1 - KT Rolster vs CJ Entus (December 30, 2013)
TY gained his reputation as a strategic genius in the latter portion of his career, but he was already making intriguing, intelligent plays earlier on.
Those who remember Yeonsu will remember it as the designated Blink-Stalker all-in map in PvT, with games frequently decided by how well the Terran defended. In this particular game, TY went for the peculiar choice of investing in a very early Sensor Tower, even getting it before his Factory. As a result, TY's infantry was able to parry herO's Stalkers as they probed for an entry angle, and it ultimately led to TY winning after a successful defense.
Now, TY may have been able to hold the attack off anyway, and it's not like fast Sensor Towers became the meta build after this. Still, in this case, it's the intent that counts. Faced with a predictable problem, TY came with an out-of-the-box solution that helped him get the win on that day.
TY vs aLive: 2016 Proleague Round 1 - KT Rolster vs Afreeca Freecs (February 23, 2016)
Tankivacs were one of the most polarizing new changes in the release version of Legacy of the Void, but they did make for some interesting games in the best-case scenarios. TY and aLive showed us exactly how dynamic Tankivacs could be in this game-of-the-year worthy showdown.
The players were started by being active in the early game, but once Tankivacs came into play, the intensity ratcheted up several levels. The action-packed game eventually turned into a dramatic basetrade, with both players scrambling to adapt to the rapidly changing battlefield. In the end, TY proved to be just a bit faster in terms of both decision making and hand speed, and narrowly eked out the win.
TY vs Serral: 2020 War Chest Team League - (August 2, 2020)
What happens when the smartest player in the world plays against the best player at scouting in StarCraft II history? A 2/1/1 into double-Starport Battlecruiser, apparently.
TY started off this game normally enough with a 2/1/1, but after Serral got a scout of his base, TY made a wild pivot and into 2 Starport BC's. Serral seemed to sense something was awry, but TY successfully kept him in the Dark by denying further scouting. By the time the Finnish Zerg managed to force an Overseer into the Terrain main, it was already too late. Serral had only five Queens and not a spore to speak of when TY's Battlecruisers teleported across the map, and he conceded defeat after his Roach-Ling counterattack failed to even up the game.
Written by: Mizenhauer Editors: CosmicSpiral, Wax Statistics and records: Aligulac.com and Liquipedia Images and Photos: Patrick Strack (via ESL), Helena Kristiansson (via ESL), Benjamin Cotton (via DreamHack)
WESG is definitely one of the more difficult tournaments to rate, because the actual main event itself had an extremely weak field of players due to the 'Olympic'-style roster construction.
At the same time, the first place prize money was absolutely insane—WESG 2016's (played in 2017) $200,000 prize was the biggest first place prize in SC2 history up to that point, and it actually equaled BlizzCon that year (2017 was the year when Blizzard doubled the Blizzcon prize money).
I know the 'value' of prize money is something fans disagree on a lot, and we have the luxury of saying prestige is more important than money sometimes. But for most players, money is a huge factor in how they prioritize events, and I have no problem rating WESG as one of the biggest tournament series ever when evaluating player accomplishments.
Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
If WESG is counted as World Championships, I don’t see how Maru won’t be #1 on this list. However as pointed out by Charoisaur, some players won’t make it despite having potentially more arguments than Rain or TY Interesting either way
On January 18 2024 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
Life isn't on the list for obv reasons
But even if he was in consideration, I don't think he deserves top 10 on any accomplishment-based list with his resume (it's been superseded by a lot of players because they got to keep playing after he got banned for life, lol). The hypothetical Life case is very much the "he felt like the best player" vibes that ppl have applied to Mvp/Maru/Serral/INno at various points in their careers.
TY!! His play ranks among the least clean of the greats, but his deep understanding of the game always carries him through.
I'll volunteer a second SPL2014 game, his snipe of Soulkey using the OP rocks on Yeonsu . Or maybe a third, the G6 of SPL finals vs Classic (though this was really more memorable for the hype than the gameplay). TY just always knew exactly what to play for, and was willing to play as ugly as necessary to achieve that condition, and it was inspiring on its best days.
Edit: I have to say, being allowed to cut the timeframe and the criteria makes the statistics feel just the slightest bit arbitrary. But in the name of hype, I suspend my disbelief
It's also really interesting that TY did so much better vs Rogue (62% match WR) than vs Dark (29% match WR); that's such a huge difference for a single MU for two similar-caliber zergs. Granted, they have polar opposite playstyles in ZvT, and I feel like this has got to be up there as one of the best illustrations of stylistic differences in matchups, i.e. that TY's TvZ matches up 35% better vs Rogue's style of ZvT than Dark's style of ZvT, a crazy margin
Crazy thing with TY is he was such a fantastic tactical lategame player for so many years that no one criticised him at all when he finally won two GSLs in 2020 by cheesing or doing incredibly abusive timings every game. Any other player doing that would have caused outrage (like when Rogue wins trophies doing 12 pools or nydus all-in every match)
Maybe him becoming a caster that same year and hence dedicating more time to analysing all the opponents helped him figure out weak points in their builds.
The feedback to these has already been fascinating! It seems like the Serral advocates lean more towards statistics (WINNING RECORD VS EVERYONE!) whereas the "Korean Elitists" are leaning on pure trophy count and the prestige of Code S (THE GUY WON X NUMBER OF TIMES!).
A lot of my methodology was ported over from numerous GOAT lists I've admired that dealt with traditional sports and, as such, it makes sense that I value statistics like win rate or the number of times reaching a specific stage of an event) There are hundreds of examples of hall of famers and icons in every sport who never won on the highest level, but their statistical resume is unimpeachable. Even Lebron James, who at this point is top 2 GOAT without doubt, leans less on championships (Jordan has him beat) or MVPs (Kareem gets him here) and more on the fact that he has already scored the most points in history and continues to set longevity records that are frankly unprecedented.
Anyway, back to the StarCraft!
"Greatest" (in the context of a GOAT list) is a really vague and subjective term, but I think everyone can agree there's a certain je ne sais quoi about being "The Greatest" or "One of the Greatest". To me, TY having what I consider to be the is the single best matchup of any player in the history of Code S (the same tournament that a lot of people say is THE BEST and THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS). TY guy won 7 out of 10 TvT's he played during an era in which players like ByuN, INnoVation, Maru, aLive, Bunny, Cure and GuMiho (that's 13 combined Code S wins btw) ranged from good to very good and even great.
It may not be a trophy he can put in his cabinet but, if you ask me, that is one of the best examples of greatness that you will ever see in StarCraft II.
On January 18 2024 03:13 yubo56 wrote: TY!! His play ranks among the least clean of the greats, but his deep understanding of the game always carries him through.
I'll volunteer a second SPL2014 game, his snipe of Soulkey using the OP rocks on Yeonsu https://youtu.be/pcFLB6o61VY?t=588 . Or maybe a third, the G6 of SPL finals vs Classic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1fnEPfifsQ (though this was really more memorable for the hype than the gameplay). TY just always knew exactly what to play for, and was willing to play as ugly as necessary to achieve that condition, and it was inspiring on its best days.
Edit: I have to say, being allowed to cut the timeframe and the criteria makes the statistics feel just the slightest bit arbitrary. But in the name of hype, I suspend my disbelief
It's also really interesting that TY did so much better vs Rogue (62% match WR) than vs Dark (29% match WR); that's such a huge difference for a single MU for two similar-caliber zergs. Granted, they have polar opposite playstyles in ZvT, and I feel like this has got to be up there as one of the best illustrations of stylistic differences in matchups, i.e. that TY's TvZ matches up 35% better vs Rogue's style of ZvT than Dark's style of ZvT, a crazy margin
A few players like Dark have gained on TY when it comes to overall win rate over the past few years, but even then they haven't surpassed him. TY's record is so good that anything but winning or making the finals of Code S actively works against you when it comes to reaching his win rates.
Btw if we wanna make asteriks for serral for his wins being in zerg favored moments does ty get an asterisk for his 2 biggest wins being in 2017, which was a pretty terran favored year?
Combining two lists sc1/sc2 is an impossible task you cant mix broodwar and sc2 in 1 list , every possible result is just a pointless mess
but if i was forced to do it
flash/serral s tier jaedong/bisu/maru a tier
than you have only 5 spots left how can ty in it when you have terrans left like nada/mvp/boxer/iloveoov at least 3 of those 4 i would put higher than ty but than if you put ty in a top ten list there is no space left for players like
protoss like nalra/garimto/stork zergs like savior/july/yellow/dark/rogue + some more players i have missed out
ty cant be higher than all of those ty cant be in any top ten list
On January 18 2024 05:29 weyoun wrote: Combining two lists sc1/sc2 is an impossible task you cant mix broodwar and sc2 in 1 list , every possible result is just a pointless mess
but if i was forced to do it
flash/serral s tier jaedong/bisu/maru a tier
than you have only 5 spots left how can ty in it when you have terrans left like nada/mvp/boxer/iloveoov at least 3 of those 4 i would put higher than ty but than if you put ty in a top ten list there is no space left for players like
protoss like nalra/garimto/stork zergs like savior/july/yellow/dark/rogue + some more players i have missed out
ty cant be higher than all of those ty cant be in any top ten list
I am really happy no one is forcing you to do it, cuz that list is not so good
I'd personally put TY barely outside the top 10, but I also value soO's 2nd places more highly than most. Curious to see if soO makes this list or not, but I'm guessing he doesn't.
On January 18 2024 04:13 Mizenhauer wrote: The feedback to these has already been fascinating! It seems like the Serral advocates lean more towards statistics (WINNING RECORD VS EVERYONE!) whereas the "Korean Elitists" are leaning on pure trophy count and the prestige of Code S (THE GUY WON X NUMBER OF TIMES!).
A lot of my methodology was ported over from numerous GOAT lists I've admired that dealt with physical sports and, as such, it makes sense that I value statistics like win rate or the number of times reaching a specific stage of an event) There are hundreds of examples of hall of famers and icons in every sport who never won on the highest level, but their statistical resume is unimpeachable. Even Lebron James, who at this point is top 2 GOAT without doubt, leans less on championships (Jordan has him beat) or MVPs (Kareem gets him here) and more on the fact that he has already scored the most points in history and continues to set longevity records that are frankly unprecedented.
Anyway, back to the StarCraft!
"Greatest" (in the context of a GOAT list) is a really vague and subjective term, but I think everyone can agree there's a certain je ne sais quoi about being "The Greatest" or "One of the Greatest". To me, TY having what i consider to be the is the single best matchup of any player in the history of Code S (the same tournament that a lot of people say is THE BEST and THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS). TY guy won 7 out of 10 TvT's he played during an era in which players like ByuN, INnoVation, Maru, aLive, Bunny, Cure and GuMiho (that's 13 combined Code S wins btw) ranged from good to very good and even great.
It may not be a trophy he can put in his cabinet but, if you ask me, that is one of the best examples of greatness that you will ever see in StarCraft II.
Speaking as someone who would probably be accused of being a "Korean Elitist", it's less about the "prestige" of GSL for me, and more about my subjective assessment as to how dang hard it is to actually win a GSL...certainly compared to other regional finals, but even compared to many world championship-tier events. The basic logic here is that often the "worst" players in GSL can take out championship-tier players on their good days with sufficient prep, so it was and still is not that uncommon for championship-tier players to fall out early. Which is why you'd have these weird ESL/WCS finals that wouldn't even include players like Rogue, Dark, Maru, etc.
Tournament format also plays a role here, in that a lot of the other tourneys if they had group stages at all would have these large format group stages that allow for more of an opportunity to smooth out variance. For example, the Gamers8 swiss-style group stage format allowed for qualification to playoffs with up to 2 match losses (in fact every player that had 2 losses made it to the playoffs). And Oliveira had 3 losses in last year's IEM Katowice group stages! Blizzcon had a similar 4-player group stage format in which you were done if you lost twice in the group stages, but in most GSLs you had to survive two of these group stages with in my opinion an overall higher caliber of competition in both the group stages and playoffs.
I think in the last couple of years you could argue that the dynamics have shifted with the emergence of Clem and MaxPax as true global champion-tier players, but before that GSL felt to me like the hardest tournament to win, even without Reynor and Serral. Or at least the hardest tournament to make a deep run in, that's probably the better way to put it.
On January 18 2024 07:27 lolfail9001 wrote: Tbh seeing TY on this list gives me an uncanny feeling we might see soO on it as well.
In which case, given that Rogue/Innovation/Zest(?)/Maru/Serral(?) should likely be lock-ins makes this list very intriguing for the last spot.
I think you're right! I'm guessing SOS or Hero (CJ). Hero was crushing some of the early IEMs and also Proleague and has the interesting post-military peak, and SOS also crushed Proleague and has GSL, the 2 world championships, etc.
On January 18 2024 07:27 lolfail9001 wrote: Tbh seeing TY on this list gives me an uncanny feeling we might see soO on it as well.
In which case, given that Rogue/Innovation/Zest(?)/Maru/Serral(?) should likely be lock-ins makes this list very intriguing for the last spot.
I think you're right! I'm guessing SOS or Hero (CJ). Hero was crushing some of the early IEMs and also Proleague and has the interesting post-military peak, and SOS also crushed Proleague and has GSL, the 2 world championships, etc.
re: sOs, he has zero gsl wins (he made the finals twice), but you missed out on one of his wc's, He won WCS in 2013, IEM in 2014 and WCS again in 2015.
Thanks for hanging out in the threads Mizen! I broadly speaking agree with and enjoy your methodology
It's also very interesting to note that Mizen's already pointed out the five Korean greats of LOTV (dark/stats/rogue/maru/TY) based on individual league performance, but stats and dark have worse stats than TY (lower winrates in individual leagues, fewer world championships). Given that stats & dark are lock-ins for many people in this thread so far, I feel like maybe some of us are about to be wrong. Obviously Rogue and Maru are way later in the list, but it doesn't seem like stats' results hold up by these criteria.
As a rabid Dark fan, I hope Dark can still make it in based on his single WC, three starleagues (one SSL + 2 GSLs) and his long consistency as both a Ro16 lock and a perennial championship contender (though not too often the favorite).
Rogue Maru Serral are definitely top three I think (though the two koreans are notoriously inconsistent, and serral has a comparative lack of korean titles by not playing in GSL), inno sOs zest Mvp should be high in the top 10 as well. That leaves me with a single slot remaining... I can't really see stats > TY based on the criteria provided (though maybe I need more statistics heh), Life is a no-go... I guess soO seems like the most likely final candidate, with six GSL silvers (4 in consecutive seasons) and a WC, soO clearly had a hot streak too. Does he beat dark?
So if I had to guess: Rogue Maru Serral sOs mvp (inno/zest/dark) is guess for the remaining 8, based on the methodology article "WCs are the most prestigious". Rogue has the most WC + GSL, Maru has infinite GSLs + longevity, Serral has 2 WCs and insane winrates, sOs has three WCs, Mvp has his insane streak (but no WCs), and inno/zest/soo feel like the HOTS greats, but soO has no GSLs haha, so lemme replace him with dark :D
Very excited for the rest of the series to come out!
On January 18 2024 08:26 yubo56 wrote: Thanks for hanging out in the threads Mizen! I broadly speaking agree with and enjoy your methodology
It's also very interesting to note that Mizen's already pointed out the five Korean greats of LOTV (dark/stats/rogue/maru/TY) based on individual league performance, but stats and dark have worse stats than TY (lower winrates in individual leagues, fewer world championships). Given that stats & dark are lock-ins for many people in this thread so far, I feel like maybe some of us are about to be wrong. Obviously Rogue and Maru are way later in the list, but it doesn't seem like stats' results hold up by these criteria.
As a rabid Dark fan, I hope Dark can still make it in based on his single WC, three starleagues (one SSL + 2 GSLs) and his long consistency as both a Ro16 lock and a perennial championship contender (though not too often the favorite).
Rogue Maru Serral are definitely top three I think (though the two koreans are notoriously inconsistent, and serral has a comparative lack of korean titles by not playing in GSL), inno sOs zest Mvp should be high in the top 10 as well. That leaves me with a single slot remaining... I can't really see stats > TY based on the criteria provided (though maybe I need more statistics heh), Life is a no-go... I guess soO seems like the most likely final candidate, with six GSL silvers (4 in consecutive seasons) and a WC, soO clearly had a hot streak too.
So if I had to guess: Rogue Maru Serral sOs mvp (inno/zest) soO is guess for the remaining 8, based on the methodology article "WCs are the most prestigious". Rogue has the most WC + GSL, Maru has infinite GSLs + longevity, Serral has 2 WCs and insane winrates, sOs has three WCs, Mvp has his insane streak (but no WCs), and inno/zest/soo feel like the HOTS greats, but soO has no GSLs haha.
Very excited for the rest of the series to come out!
Glad you've been enjoying it. Once the entire series are down i'll be making a blog post about the players I had ranked 11-15 and the reasons they ended up outside of the top 10. Each of them are legends of the game, but sadly cuts had to be made .
Hum what an interesting choice. Somehow, I didn't think of TY at all when thinking about who I would put in a top 10, I didn't ruled him out, just kind of forgot about him. Not sure why, maybe it's because he's somewhat sandwiched inbetween Byun and Maru. It's weird cause INno jumped into my mind among the first, but TY does compare quite favorably to him on some aspects.
The article makes a very strong case, maybe he does in fact deserve to land at no9, such an amazingly smart player.
With both Rain and TY in the top 10, looks like it will end up very Kespa heavy, altought knowing Life gone peraps give an extra place for a Reynor, MC or MMA. But there's never enough place for everyone!
On January 18 2024 05:13 darklycid wrote: Btw if we wanna make asteriks for serral for his wins being in zerg favored moments does ty get an asterisk for his 2 biggest wins being in 2017, which was a pretty terran favored year?
Not even close. Terran did well at the start of 2017 (as did Protoss, only zerg was falling behind) but there weren't any long running terran winstreaks.
All of Serral's trophies came during the period of zerg winning 9 world championships in a row (between him, Reynor, soO, Dark, and Rogue). Almost all of his wins you can look at and if not for him, another zerg would have won.
Hell, Rogue was already on a 4 weekender streak (IEM, Super Cup, Blizzcon, Katowice) when Serral's legendary run started. The funny part is that people call Serral's 2018 the best run ever when Rogue's 9 months earlier was even better and got called a patchzerg.
On January 18 2024 07:27 lolfail9001 wrote: Tbh seeing TY on this list gives me an uncanny feeling we might see soO on it as well.
In which case, given that Rogue/Innovation/Zest(?)/Maru/Serral(?) should likely be lock-ins makes this list very intriguing for the last spot.
I think you're right! I'm guessing SOS or Hero (CJ). Hero was crushing some of the early IEMs and also Proleague and has the interesting post-military peak, and SOS also crushed Proleague and has GSL, the 2 world championships, etc.
re: sOs, he has zero gsl wins (he made the finals twice), but you missed out on one of his wc's, He won WCS in 2013, IEM in 2014 and WCS again in 2015.
Somehow in my mind I re-wrote history and had him beating Byun
On January 18 2024 07:27 lolfail9001 wrote: Tbh seeing TY on this list gives me an uncanny feeling we might see soO on it as well.
In which case, given that Rogue/Innovation/Zest(?)/Maru/Serral(?) should likely be lock-ins makes this list very intriguing for the last spot.
soO is genuinely about 10 games away from being number 1. And I think that alone shows someone should be at least in the top 10.
Looking through his history flipping 10 games would let him win 4 GSLs and a Blizzcon. Or alternatively 3 GSLs, Blizzcon and one of the other internationals he took second in like an IEM or Dreamhack. Plus those would be Kespa era GSLs and he already has Kato, TSL, and Kespa Cup. I'm not sure that puts him over Maru, Rogue and probably Serral for me but definitely over anyone else. Crazy how big of a difference just a few games can make to the perception of a player.
On January 18 2024 07:27 lolfail9001 wrote: Tbh seeing TY on this list gives me an uncanny feeling we might see soO on it as well.
In which case, given that Rogue/Innovation/Zest(?)/Maru/Serral(?) should likely be lock-ins makes this list very intriguing for the last spot.
soO is genuinely about 10 games away from being number 1. And I think that alone shows someone should be at least in the top 10.
if soO ends in the top 10 by the merit of his silvers then Stats should also be there since he has one more major tournament silver than soO (including 3 starleagues and 3 world championships), though I highly doubt they can both make the list.
On January 18 2024 07:27 lolfail9001 wrote: Tbh seeing TY on this list gives me an uncanny feeling we might see soO on it as well.
In which case, given that Rogue/Innovation/Zest(?)/Maru/Serral(?) should likely be lock-ins makes this list very intriguing for the last spot.
soO is genuinely about 10 games away from being number 1. And I think that alone shows someone should be at least in the top 10.
Looking through his history flipping 10 games would let him win 4 GSLs and a Blizzcon. Or alternatively 3 GSLs, Blizzcon and one of the other internationals he took second in like an IEM or Dreamhack. Plus those would be Kespa era GSLs and he already has Kato, TSL, and Kespa Cup. I'm not sure that puts him over Maru, Rogue and probably Serral for me but definitely over anyone else. Crazy how big of a difference just a few games can make to the perception of a player.
Flip 9 games and he has 4 GSLs in a row (in the most competitive era, sorry Maru) plus Blizzcon and Katowice. If not the GOAT, he'd be a bonjwa
I guess by 2023 standards Maru has 9 starleagues, Rogue has 4+3 World Championships, Serral has like 15 trophies including 2 World championships. Maybe soO could fall down a couple places,
On January 18 2024 08:39 Nakajin wrote: Hum what an interesting choice. Somehow, I didn't think of TY at all when thinking about who I would put in a top 10, I didn't ruled him out, just kind of forgot about him. Not sure why, maybe it's because he's somewhat sandwiched inbetween Byun and Maru. It's weird cause INno jumped into my mind among the first, but TY does compare quite favorably to him on some aspects.
The article makes a very strong case, maybe he does in fact deserve to land at no9, such an amazingly smart player.
With both Rain and TY in the top 10, looks like it will end up very Kespa heavy, altought knowing Life gone peraps give an extra place for a Reynor, MC or MMA. But there's never enough place for everyone!
I don't think Reynor can qualify given how the scoring works, I don't think there's enough places for MMA to make the cut, and sadly I think MC isn't gonna make it for similar reasons to why Nestea isn't making it. Though MC has overall a better record than Nestea in my opinion due to all his international victories, (and MC made it to 3 GSL finals, winning two of them, which is comparable to Nestea's three victories against Leenock, Inca, and ;( MKP ).
On January 18 2024 04:13 Mizenhauer wrote: The feedback to these has already been fascinating! It seems like the Serral advocates lean more towards statistics (WINNING RECORD VS EVERYONE!) whereas the "Korean Elitists" are leaning on pure trophy count and the prestige of Code S (THE GUY WON X NUMBER OF TIMES!).
A lot of my methodology was ported over from numerous GOAT lists I've admired that dealt with physical sports and, as such, it makes sense that I value statistics like win rate or the number of times reaching a specific stage of an event) There are hundreds of examples of hall of famers and icons in every sport who never won on the highest level, but their statistical resume is unimpeachable. Even Lebron James, who at this point is top 2 GOAT without doubt, leans less on championships (Jordan has him beat) or MVPs (Kareem gets him here) and more on the fact that he has already scored the most points in history and continues to set longevity records that are frankly unprecedented.
Anyway, back to the StarCraft!
"Greatest" (in the context of a GOAT list) is a really vague and subjective term, but I think everyone can agree there's a certain je ne sais quoi about being "The Greatest" or "One of the Greatest". To me, TY having what I consider to be the is the single best matchup of any player in the history of Code S (the same tournament that a lot of people say is THE BEST and THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS). TY guy won 7 out of 10 TvT's he played during an era in which players like ByuN, INnoVation, Maru, aLive, Bunny, Cure and GuMiho (that's 13 combined Code S wins btw) ranged from good to very good and even great.
It may not be a trophy he can put in his cabinet but, if you ask me, that is one of the best examples of greatness that you will ever see in StarCraft II.
Agreed, and added to that complexity versus most big sports, its predecessors you have - 3 iterations of the game - Multiple changes of structure, in Korea and worldwide, pre, during and post-Kespa etc. Multiple orgs running tournaments and bowing out etc. - Different balance patches
I think this is a pretty decent placement personally. If we’re talking playing different styles, mechanical chops, tactical chops in-game and set-planning, TY may not be the greatest or best player, but I think he’s got a very strong case as the most complete player we’ve seen.
Maru’s got his occasional brain fart. Inno would steamroll you with his mechanics, but not so good with a plan B. herO and Stats are opposite sides of the occasionally too aggressive/defensive coin. Rogue’s not the most consistent and Dark of recent years seems engaged in a personal challenge of winning with wonky unit comps. Zest’s bank is a meme for a reason.
On January 18 2024 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
Stats won a GSL and an SSL. He was very consistently good and a proleague monster, but I'll go out and say he is not making the top 10. Life isn't either for obvious reasons.
But looking at how Mizenhauer is rating WCs, there's a case for Reynor to be in there. And maybe Nestea and MC too, both with 3 wins in GSL and world championships, albeit in the very early pre-Kespa era of WoL.
E: oh, and he said he was valuing 2nd places quite highly, so soO is up there too.
On January 18 2024 04:13 Mizenhauer wrote: The feedback to these has already been fascinating! It seems like the Serral advocates lean more towards statistics (WINNING RECORD VS EVERYONE!) whereas the "Korean Elitists" are leaning on pure trophy count and the prestige of Code S (THE GUY WON X NUMBER OF TIMES!).
A lot of my methodology was ported over from numerous GOAT lists I've admired that dealt with physical sports and, as such, it makes sense that I value statistics like win rate or the number of times reaching a specific stage of an event) There are hundreds of examples of hall of famers and icons in every sport who never won on the highest level, but their statistical resume is unimpeachable. Even Lebron James, who at this point is top 2 GOAT without doubt, leans less on championships (Jordan has him beat) or MVPs (Kareem gets him here) and more on the fact that he has already scored the most points in history and continues to set longevity records that are frankly unprecedented.
Anyway, back to the StarCraft!
"Greatest" (in the context of a GOAT list) is a really vague and subjective term, but I think everyone can agree there's a certain je ne sais quoi about being "The Greatest" or "One of the Greatest". To me, TY having what I consider to be the is the single best matchup of any player in the history of Code S (the same tournament that a lot of people say is THE BEST and THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS). TY guy won 7 out of 10 TvT's he played during an era in which players like ByuN, INnoVation, Maru, aLive, Bunny, Cure and GuMiho (that's 13 combined Code S wins btw) ranged from good to very good and even great.
It may not be a trophy he can put in his cabinet but, if you ask me, that is one of the best examples of greatness that you will ever see in StarCraft II.
Agreed, and added to that complexity versus most big sports, its predecessors you have - 3 iterations of the game - Multiple changes of structure, in Korea and worldwide, pre, during and post-Kespa etc. Multiple orgs running tournaments and bowing out etc. - Different balance patches
I think this is a pretty decent placement personally. If we’re talking playing different styles, mechanical chops, tactical chops in-game and set-planning, TY may not be the greatest or best player, but I think he’s got a very strong case as the most complete player we’ve seen.
Maru’s got his occasional brain fart. Inno would steamroll you with his mechanics, but not so good with a plan B. herO and Stats are opposite sides of the occasionally too aggressive/defensive coin. Rogue’s not the most consistent and Dark of recent years seems engaged in a personal challenge of winning with wonky unit comps. Zest’s bank is a meme for a reason.
Etc etc
TY the only player to lose to shitty ravager build in GSL though
On January 18 2024 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
Stats won a GSL and an SSL. He was very consistently good and a proleague monster, but I'll go out and say he is not making the top 10. Life isn't either for obvious reasons.
But looking at how Mizenhauer is rating WCs, there's a case for Reynor to be in there. And maybe Nestea and MC too, both with 3 wins in GSL and world championships, albeit in the very early pre-Kespa era of WoL.
E: oh, and he said he was valuing 2nd places quite highly, so soO is up there too.
I think given Miz doesn’t rate influence/developing the game quite as highly as I do, in lieu of flourishing in an era where the foundations were set and stealing an edge where you’re a bit ahead of the curve was much harder, I doubt Nestea/MC are making it.
Even me, who rates it very highly indeed (it is a strategy game after all, not a pure execution game) probably still would have those two as a lock for a top 20, but not too 10.
Not his fault at all but I don’t think Reynor has a shot and I’d agree. He doesn’t have Serral’s relentless consistency, he shares the lack of Proleague with him, but not the lack of Starleague participation and while his first efforts saw him exceed expectation, his latest saw him come way short of it.
He’s a bit streaky, peak for the big moments kind of guy, but he’s just not been around long enough to have more of those moments than Rogue, or $o$ who I feel are similarly mercurial talents.
As I said I don’t think it’s really a failing of his, if Reynor was a couple of years older and on a similar talent development trajectory he’s probably making a case for top 10. As a Serral on a similar trajectory would move from a ‘where do we place him in the top 10’ to an absolute lock for a top 3 place
But as we can’t as a species, unfortunately (yet) time-travel or peer into alternate timelines such as ‘what if Mvp or Taeja had more robust wrists?’ or ‘what if Rain stuck around?’ we kinda have to judge on face value.
For the record I think Reynor probably makes it into a list of ‘top 10 raw talents’ or ‘top 10 mechanical monsters’ no bother, in the latter I’d place him above even Serral probably.
I know we have our biases, skills we value more than others and our personal favourites, but I never want my naysaying, or when I take the microscope out to ever imply any disrespect to these titans and their skills.
Indeed I think it attests to StarCraft(s) greatness as a game that there is such space for disagreement. That we have preferences for the perfect defensive macro monster, the ruthless timing attack aficionado, the fromage fiend, or the player whose brain compensates for their fingers or the inverse.
Thanks to Mizenhauer, not only for the list, but for the trip down memory lane. The linked vods send me on a trip to 2016 proleague, enjoying it so far and I think it also gives a good perspective of how different the game was 8 years ago.
People here naming Reynor and Serral I think are not necessarily wrong, but when judging for the Greatest of All Time we cannot let the present or even the recent past weigh more than the distant past. The same goes for Maru.
On January 18 2024 05:13 darklycid wrote: Btw if we wanna make asteriks for serral for his wins being in zerg favored moments does ty get an asterisk for his 2 biggest wins being in 2017, which was a pretty terran favored year?
Not even close. Terran did well at the start of 2017 (as did Protoss, only zerg was falling behind) but there weren't any long running terran winstreaks.
All of Serral's trophies came during the period of zerg winning 9 world championships in a row (between him, Reynor, soO, Dark, and Rogue). Almost all of his wins you can look at and if not for him, another zerg would have won.
Hell, Rogue was already on a 4 weekender streak (IEM, Super Cup, Blizzcon, Katowice) when Serral's legendary run started. The funny part is that people call Serral's 2018 the best run ever when Rogue's 9 months earlier was even better and got called a patchzerg.
Hmm Not untrue though many of TYs big wins are from periods where terran overperformed (start of 2017, start of 2020), im Not saying he doesnt deserve to be on this list but that is what separates him from e.g. Maru or other greats that have shown to be able to do very Well even at Times where Balance was against them.
On January 18 2024 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
Stats won a GSL and an SSL. He was very consistently good and a proleague monster, but I'll go out and say he is not making the top 10. Life isn't either for obvious reasons.
But looking at how Mizenhauer is rating WCs, there's a case for Reynor to be in there. And maybe Nestea and MC too, both with 3 wins in GSL and world championships, albeit in the very early pre-Kespa era of WoL.
E: oh, and he said he was valuing 2nd places quite highly, so soO is up there too.
if soO is up there because his 2nd place than Stats definitely must be too. He has 2nd places in 3 world championships and 2 Starleagues (or 3?) as well as numerous other tournaments
On January 18 2024 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
Life isn't on the list for obv reasons
But even if he was in consideration, I don't think he deserves top 10 on any accomplishment-based list with his resume (it's been superseded by a lot of players because they got to keep playing after he got banned for life, lol). The hypothetical Life case is very much the "he felt like the best player" vibes that ppl have applied to Mvp/Maru/Serral/INno at various points in their careers.
If Lifes resume got superseded than Rain's should as well, but he is there. Life was definitely more succesful than Rain and they were both playing at the same time
On January 18 2024 02:46 Poopi wrote: If WESG is counted as World Championships, I don’t see how Maru won’t be #1 on this list. However as pointed out by Charoisaur, some players won’t make it despite having potentially more arguments than Rain or TY Interesting either way
Just make the same table of performances per stages, listing every international championship that both Maru and Serral have been together.
And compare Finals / Semi finals /RO4, accomplishments between them both, and early exits... And you will see why Maru doesnt deserve GOAT title when Serrals is in the same picture.
On January 18 2024 02:46 Poopi wrote: If WESG is counted as World Championships, I don’t see how Maru won’t be #1 on this list. However as pointed out by Charoisaur, some players won’t make it despite having potentially more arguments than Rain or TY Interesting either way
Just make the same table of performances per stages, listing every international championship that both Maru and Serral have been together.
And compare Finals / Semi finals /RO4, accomplishments between them both, and early exits... And you will see why Maru doesnt deserve GOAT title when Serrals is in the same picture.
Yeah. if you ignore all tournaments before 2018 as well as all tournaments Serral didn't participate in, then he's the Goat, I agree
On January 18 2024 02:46 Poopi wrote: If WESG is counted as World Championships, I don’t see how Maru won’t be #1 on this list. However as pointed out by Charoisaur, some players won’t make it despite having potentially more arguments than Rain or TY Interesting either way
Just make the same table of performances per stages, listing every international championship that both Maru and Serral have been together.
And compare Finals / Semi finals /RO4, accomplishments between them both, and early exits... And you will see why Maru doesnt deserve GOAT title when Serrals is in the same picture.
Maru has made more Final/Ro4 than you realized, despite his later half of 2023 didnt suggest so. He has made more Ro4 at IEM than Serral iirc, but Serral won 1 so you probably will say it doesnt matter.
The statistical breakdowns are very useful. They really underline the levels that these players achieved, and for how long they maintained them, because that can sometimes get lost when you only look at championship wins.
On January 18 2024 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
Stats won a GSL and an SSL. He was very consistently good and a proleague monster, but I'll go out and say he is not making the top 10. Life isn't either for obvious reasons.
But looking at how Mizenhauer is rating WCs, there's a case for Reynor to be in there. And maybe Nestea and MC too, both with 3 wins in GSL and world championships, albeit in the very early pre-Kespa era of WoL.
E: oh, and he said he was valuing 2nd places quite highly, so soO is up there too.
I think given Miz doesn’t rate influence/developing the game quite as highly as I do, in lieu of flourishing in an era where the foundations were set and stealing an edge where you’re a bit ahead of the curve was much harder, I doubt Nestea/MC are making it.
Even me, who rates it very highly indeed (it is a strategy game after all, not a pure execution game) probably still would have those two as a lock for a top 20, but not too 10.
Not his fault at all but I don’t think Reynor has a shot and I’d agree. He doesn’t have Serral’s relentless consistency, he shares the lack of Proleague with him, but not the lack of Starleague participation and while his first efforts saw him exceed expectation, his latest saw him come way short of it.
He’s a bit streaky, peak for the big moments kind of guy, but he’s just not been around long enough to have more of those moments than Rogue, or $o$ who I feel are similarly mercurial talents.
As I said I don’t think it’s really a failing of his, if Reynor was a couple of years older and on a similar talent development trajectory he’s probably making a case for top 10. As a Serral on a similar trajectory would move from a ‘where do we place him in the top 10’ to an absolute lock for a top 3 place
But as we can’t as a species, unfortunately (yet) time-travel or peer into alternate timelines such as ‘what if Mvp or Taeja had more robust wrists?’ or ‘what if Rain stuck around?’ we kinda have to judge on face value.
For the record I think Reynor probably makes it into a list of ‘top 10 raw talents’ or ‘top 10 mechanical monsters’ no bother, in the latter I’d place him above even Serral probably.
I know we have our biases, skills we value more than others and our personal favourites, but I never want my naysaying, or when I take the microscope out to ever imply any disrespect to these titans and their skills.
Indeed I think it attests to StarCraft(s) greatness as a game that there is such space for disagreement. That we have preferences for the perfect defensive macro monster, the ruthless timing attack aficionado, the fromage fiend, or the player whose brain compensates for their fingers or the inverse.
Regarding Proleague, please refer to the intro article. One of the main points of comparing these players against their peers in four different phases of sc2 (each of which covers roughly 3 years) is to make it so you can't use a competition one played in against one another didn't. In fact, once you open that can of worms you lose whatever objectivity you had. Let's presume like you say, that serral loses points for not playing in pl. Does mc lose points because he didn't get to play in a "modern" world championship? Does Mvp get docked because he could never played in Proleague and didn't get to play against the majority of the "KeSPA greats"? The answer is no for all three examples. Each of these players were compared against the players they played. Same goes for everyone on this list. Eventually you do have to figure out an order based upon players who might not have intersected, but that process wasn't as difficult as I had expected due to the sheer amount of results I collected..
I think it's silly to say Serral and Reynor should be docked for not playing in Proleague. They simply never had the opportunity to do so. Proleague was a big determiner when analyzing players like Inno, soO, sOs, herO, stats, zest etc etc, because they all competed in PL at the same time. However, when it came to players like Reynor and Serral (who came to prominence after the end of PL) there are tons of events that can be used to compare them to other successful players of the last 5 years.
Serral maru mvp inno mc dark Stephano nestea/rogue
Was actually just spitballing names thinking about the other 8, but the order came out pretty good.
Life would have probably been in the god tier alongside serral and maru. Shame we got robbed of so many potential great series between them.
I know a lot of people would be quick to dismiss nestea but to be as consistently dominant as he was with the amount of bullshit in the game at that point was pretty impressive, while also being older to boot. I pretty much went by how they impacted the game. Each one of those players with the exception of maybe dark and rogue had a significant point of where you just acknowledged and agreed that they were the best human playing the game at that point.
On January 18 2024 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
Stats won a GSL and an SSL. He was very consistently good and a proleague monster, but I'll go out and say he is not making the top 10. Life isn't either for obvious reasons.
But looking at how Mizenhauer is rating WCs, there's a case for Reynor to be in there. And maybe Nestea and MC too, both with 3 wins in GSL and world championships, albeit in the very early pre-Kespa era of WoL.
E: oh, and he said he was valuing 2nd places quite highly, so soO is up there too.
I think given Miz doesn’t rate influence/developing the game quite as highly as I do, in lieu of flourishing in an era where the foundations were set and stealing an edge where you’re a bit ahead of the curve was much harder, I doubt Nestea/MC are making it.
Even me, who rates it very highly indeed (it is a strategy game after all, not a pure execution game) probably still would have those two as a lock for a top 20, but not too 10.
Not his fault at all but I don’t think Reynor has a shot and I’d agree. He doesn’t have Serral’s relentless consistency, he shares the lack of Proleague with him, but not the lack of Starleague participation and while his first efforts saw him exceed expectation, his latest saw him come way short of it.
He’s a bit streaky, peak for the big moments kind of guy, but he’s just not been around long enough to have more of those moments than Rogue, or $o$ who I feel are similarly mercurial talents.
As I said I don’t think it’s really a failing of his, if Reynor was a couple of years older and on a similar talent development trajectory he’s probably making a case for top 10. As a Serral on a similar trajectory would move from a ‘where do we place him in the top 10’ to an absolute lock for a top 3 place
But as we can’t as a species, unfortunately (yet) time-travel or peer into alternate timelines such as ‘what if Mvp or Taeja had more robust wrists?’ or ‘what if Rain stuck around?’ we kinda have to judge on face value.
For the record I think Reynor probably makes it into a list of ‘top 10 raw talents’ or ‘top 10 mechanical monsters’ no bother, in the latter I’d place him above even Serral probably.
I know we have our biases, skills we value more than others and our personal favourites, but I never want my naysaying, or when I take the microscope out to ever imply any disrespect to these titans and their skills.
Indeed I think it attests to StarCraft(s) greatness as a game that there is such space for disagreement. That we have preferences for the perfect defensive macro monster, the ruthless timing attack aficionado, the fromage fiend, or the player whose brain compensates for their fingers or the inverse.
Regarding Proleague, please refer to the intro article. One of the main points of comparing these players against their peers in four different phases of sc2 (each of which covers roughly 3 years) is to make it so you can't use a competition one played in against one another didn't. In fact, once you open that can of worms you lose whatever objectivity you had. Let's presume like you say, that serral loses points for not playing in pl. Does mc lose points because he didn't get to play in a "modern" world championship? Does Mvp get docked because he could never played in Proleague and didn't get to play against the majority of the "KeSPA greats"? The answer is no for all three examples. Each of these players were compared against the players they played. Same goes for everyone on this list. Eventually you do have to figure out an order based upon players who might not have intersected, but that process wasn't as difficult as I had expected due to the sheer amount of results I collected..
I think it's silly to say Serral and Reynor should be docked for not playing in Proleague. They simply never had the opportunity to do so. Proleague was a big determiner when analyzing players like Inno, soO, sOs, herO, stats, zest etc etc, because they all competed in PL at the same time. However, when it came to players like Reynor and Serral (who came to prominence after the end of PL) there are tons of events that can be used to compare them to other successful players of the last 5 years.
Aye mean I agree entirely but as people aren’t entirely discussing the articles through the prism of the criteria you outlined I’m responding to people’s proferred 50 cents
On January 18 2024 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
Stats won a GSL and an SSL. He was very consistently good and a proleague monster, but I'll go out and say he is not making the top 10. Life isn't either for obvious reasons.
But looking at how Mizenhauer is rating WCs, there's a case for Reynor to be in there. And maybe Nestea and MC too, both with 3 wins in GSL and world championships, albeit in the very early pre-Kespa era of WoL.
E: oh, and he said he was valuing 2nd places quite highly, so soO is up there too.
I think given Miz doesn’t rate influence/developing the game quite as highly as I do, in lieu of flourishing in an era where the foundations were set and stealing an edge where you’re a bit ahead of the curve was much harder, I doubt Nestea/MC are making it.
Even me, who rates it very highly indeed (it is a strategy game after all, not a pure execution game) probably still would have those two as a lock for a top 20, but not too 10.
Not his fault at all but I don’t think Reynor has a shot and I’d agree. He doesn’t have Serral’s relentless consistency, he shares the lack of Proleague with him, but not the lack of Starleague participation and while his first efforts saw him exceed expectation, his latest saw him come way short of it.
He’s a bit streaky, peak for the big moments kind of guy, but he’s just not been around long enough to have more of those moments than Rogue, or $o$ who I feel are similarly mercurial talents.
As I said I don’t think it’s really a failing of his, if Reynor was a couple of years older and on a similar talent development trajectory he’s probably making a case for top 10. As a Serral on a similar trajectory would move from a ‘where do we place him in the top 10’ to an absolute lock for a top 3 place
But as we can’t as a species, unfortunately (yet) time-travel or peer into alternate timelines such as ‘what if Mvp or Taeja had more robust wrists?’ or ‘what if Rain stuck around?’ we kinda have to judge on face value.
For the record I think Reynor probably makes it into a list of ‘top 10 raw talents’ or ‘top 10 mechanical monsters’ no bother, in the latter I’d place him above even Serral probably.
I know we have our biases, skills we value more than others and our personal favourites, but I never want my naysaying, or when I take the microscope out to ever imply any disrespect to these titans and their skills.
Indeed I think it attests to StarCraft(s) greatness as a game that there is such space for disagreement. That we have preferences for the perfect defensive macro monster, the ruthless timing attack aficionado, the fromage fiend, or the player whose brain compensates for their fingers or the inverse.
Regarding Proleague, please refer to the intro article. One of the main points of comparing these players against their peers in four different phases of sc2 (each of which covers roughly 3 years) is to make it so you can't use a competition one played in against one another didn't. In fact, once you open that can of worms you lose whatever objectivity you had. Let's presume like you say, that serral loses points for not playing in pl. Does mc lose points because he didn't get to play in a "modern" world championship? Does Mvp get docked because he could never played in Proleague and didn't get to play against the majority of the "KeSPA greats"? The answer is no for all three examples. Each of these players were compared against the players they played. Same goes for everyone on this list. Eventually you do have to figure out an order based upon players who might not have intersected, but that process wasn't as difficult as I had expected due to the sheer amount of results I collected..
I think it's silly to say Serral and Reynor should be docked for not playing in Proleague. They simply never had the opportunity to do so. Proleague was a big determiner when analyzing players like Inno, soO, sOs, herO, stats, zest etc etc, because they all competed in PL at the same time. However, when it came to players like Reynor and Serral (who came to prominence after the end of PL) there are tons of events that can be used to compare them to other successful players of the last 5 years.
Aye mean I agree entirely but as people aren’t entirely discussing the articles through the prism of the criteria you outlined I’m responding to people’s proferred 50 cents
Ahh, I got you. I appreciate you adding to the conversation.
I literally never thought about TY when coming up with a Top 10, but I can't deny he makes sense as a sleeper pick for one of the bottom spots.
But man, do I take issue with your definition of World Championship. It's your criteria, and I appreciate the articles so you do you, but high money = World Championship is just not it. Just because something is called a World Championship doesn't mean it actually is. Like I find it laughable to say Rogue won a World Championship in 2018. There is one World Championship a year, and for 2018 it was Blizzcon, the most prestigious and important tournament of them all. Serral is the World Champion that year, nobody else.
I would say the so-called IEM World Championship only became such in 2020, in absence of anything else. It was called the World Championship since 2011 after all, and as you pointed out yourself, it really wasn't considered to be more important or prestigious than any other international tournament back then. Nobody even gave a thought to the name. It was just a name!
On January 18 2024 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: Great read but I have to disagree hard with the rankings here. This means that both Rain and TY rank above two of Maru, Serral, Rogue, Inno, Zest, Stats, Dark, sOs, Mvp, Life and I don't see that for any of them. Maybe sOs because Mizenhauer doesn't rank world championships that highly and Life got excluded from the list?
Stats won a GSL and an SSL. He was very consistently good and a proleague monster, but I'll go out and say he is not making the top 10. Life isn't either for obvious reasons.
But looking at how Mizenhauer is rating WCs, there's a case for Reynor to be in there. And maybe Nestea and MC too, both with 3 wins in GSL and world championships, albeit in the very early pre-Kespa era of WoL.
E: oh, and he said he was valuing 2nd places quite highly, so soO is up there too.
I think given Miz doesn’t rate influence/developing the game quite as highly as I do, in lieu of flourishing in an era where the foundations were set and stealing an edge where you’re a bit ahead of the curve was much harder, I doubt Nestea/MC are making it.
Even me, who rates it very highly indeed (it is a strategy game after all, not a pure execution game) probably still would have those two as a lock for a top 20, but not too 10.
Not his fault at all but I don’t think Reynor has a shot and I’d agree. He doesn’t have Serral’s relentless consistency, he shares the lack of Proleague with him, but not the lack of Starleague participation and while his first efforts saw him exceed expectation, his latest saw him come way short of it.
He’s a bit streaky, peak for the big moments kind of guy, but he’s just not been around long enough to have more of those moments than Rogue, or $o$ who I feel are similarly mercurial talents.
As I said I don’t think it’s really a failing of his, if Reynor was a couple of years older and on a similar talent development trajectory he’s probably making a case for top 10. As a Serral on a similar trajectory would move from a ‘where do we place him in the top 10’ to an absolute lock for a top 3 place
But as we can’t as a species, unfortunately (yet) time-travel or peer into alternate timelines such as ‘what if Mvp or Taeja had more robust wrists?’ or ‘what if Rain stuck around?’ we kinda have to judge on face value.
For the record I think Reynor probably makes it into a list of ‘top 10 raw talents’ or ‘top 10 mechanical monsters’ no bother, in the latter I’d place him above even Serral probably.
I know we have our biases, skills we value more than others and our personal favourites, but I never want my naysaying, or when I take the microscope out to ever imply any disrespect to these titans and their skills.
Indeed I think it attests to StarCraft(s) greatness as a game that there is such space for disagreement. That we have preferences for the perfect defensive macro monster, the ruthless timing attack aficionado, the fromage fiend, or the player whose brain compensates for their fingers or the inverse.
Regarding Proleague, please refer to the intro article. One of the main points of comparing these players against their peers in four different phases of sc2 (each of which covers roughly 3 years) is to make it so you can't use a competition one played in against one another didn't. In fact, once you open that can of worms you lose whatever objectivity you had. Let's presume like you say, that serral loses points for not playing in pl. Does mc lose points because he didn't get to play in a "modern" world championship? Does Mvp get docked because he could never played in Proleague and didn't get to play against the majority of the "KeSPA greats"? The answer is no for all three examples. Each of these players were compared against the players they played. Same goes for everyone on this list. Eventually you do have to figure out an order based upon players who might not have intersected, but that process wasn't as difficult as I had expected due to the sheer amount of results I collected..
I think it's silly to say Serral and Reynor should be docked for not playing in Proleague. They simply never had the opportunity to do so. Proleague was a big determiner when analyzing players like Inno, soO, sOs, herO, stats, zest etc etc, because they all competed in PL at the same time. However, when it came to players like Reynor and Serral (who came to prominence after the end of PL) there are tons of events that can be used to compare them to other successful players of the last 5 years.
Aye mean I agree entirely but as people aren’t entirely discussing the articles through the prism of the criteria you outlined I’m responding to people’s proferred 50 cents
Ahh, I got you. I appreciate you adding to the conversation.
Appreciate the fine articles sir, I think it’s obvious which took more thought and perspiration!
On January 19 2024 00:18 RPR_Tempest wrote: I literally never thought about TY when coming up with a Top 10, but I can't deny he makes sense as a sleeper pick for one of the bottom spots.
But man, do I take issue with your definition of World Championship. It's your criteria, and I appreciate the articles so you do you, but high money = World Championship is just not it. Just because something is called a World Championship doesn't mean it actually is. Like I find it laughable to say Rogue won a World Championship in 2018. There is one World Championship a year, and for 2018 it was Blizzcon, the most prestigious and important tournament of them all. Serral is the World Champion that year, nobody else.
I would say the so-called IEM World Championship only became such in 2020, in absence of anything else. It was called the World Championship since 2011 after all, and as you pointed out yourself, it really wasn't considered to be more important or prestigious than any other international tournament back then. Nobody even gave a thought to the name. It was just a name!
In terms of prestige there's no reason to rank the "end-of-season" World Championships higher than IEM Katowice though.
They both had a high prize pool, all the best players in the world competing and in terms of format IEM Katowice was actually objectively harder to win as Blizzcon due to Blizzcon having bo3 groupstage with 2 foreigners per group back then.
What name exactly you attribute to this tournament doesn't really matter that much, but by all means they should be counted the same. For WESG on the other hand I agree.
The funny thing is I don't remember ever seeing or reading this argument that IEM Katowice pre-2020 isn't a "real world championship" before Serral won his 2nd world championship, and sOs was regularly called 3-time world champ without anyone questioning it
Based on the introduction article, I have come up with a points system that should mirror Mizenhauer's system quite accurately. Once I have finished computing the various points of the 8 players I think will be in the list, I'll post it up as a blog, will be fun to see how far from the actual list it'll end up.
A "preview" (winning code S is around 100 points, for scale) of it: Rain would be at around 450 points + proleague (I haven't found the winrates etc. easily, so I'll dig it more if it's needed in case of ties), TY at around 590 points + proleague, mvp at around 658 points, and Maru at around... 2329 + proleague. Maru was super long to count using Maru/Results + only premium tier tournaments ordering, despite only counting top 4 and better, plus tournaments around GSL Super Tournament as the bare minimum (so no King of Battles etc.)
Keep in mind though that mvp has had a very short career compared to others, but had the wrist vs Life narrative, epic g7 vs Squirtle, dominated during WoL, etc. so it's possible he ends up at a better place than someone who "accumulated" more points over a long span, but didn't shine as bright.
On January 18 2024 02:46 Poopi wrote: If WESG is counted as World Championships, I don’t see how Maru won’t be #1 on this list. However as pointed out by Charoisaur, some players won’t make it despite having potentially more arguments than Rain or TY Interesting either way
Just make the same table of performances per stages, listing every international championship that both Maru and Serral have been together.
And compare Finals / Semi finals /RO4, accomplishments between them both, and early exits... And you will see why Maru doesnt deserve GOAT title when Serrals is in the same picture.
Almost unbelievable how many people want to boil down 14 years of games to only the events Serral played in.
By the same logic you would rank Maru higher if he had refused to play in any World Championship events.
On January 18 2024 02:46 Poopi wrote: If WESG is counted as World Championships, I don’t see how Maru won’t be #1 on this list. However as pointed out by Charoisaur, some players won’t make it despite having potentially more arguments than Rain or TY Interesting either way
Just make the same table of performances per stages, listing every international championship that both Maru and Serral have been together.
And compare Finals / Semi finals /RO4, accomplishments between them both, and early exits... And you will see why Maru doesnt deserve GOAT title when Serrals is in the same picture.
Almost unbelievable how many people want to boil down 14 years of games to only the events Serral played in.
By the same logic you would rank Maru higher if he had refused to play in any World Championship events.
At least Koreans try to play in Euro-style weekender tourneys (though Maru wasn't really keen during the early years, I recall). Reynor has struggled in GSL but at least he's tried. And then there's Naniwa and Neeb bravely fighting Koreans on their turf.
Whereas a certain GOAT contender refuses to attempt at GSL. To count him as GOAT simply based on games on his own turf is crowning a team that only plays home games as champion based on win percentage (while every other team plays both home and away games in the league and have a lower win percentage dragged down by away games). Or imagine Nadal only plays in Roland Garros and we should crown him as GOAT purely based on comparing his number of Grand Slams with every other player's Rolland Garros wins.
This is better! Rain made absolutely no impression on me and inspired virtually no interesting memories, even though I was watching consistently during his peak. But TY is someone who not so many years ago I would have put ahead of Maru as the best Terran in the world. I had forgotten his whole list of accomplishments, though, and this article is a good refresher.
One could argue for putting TY even higher imo, but I acknowledge that the top ten is stacked enough as it is. Just a brilliant all-around player, fun to watch, intelligent and effective in every area and every era he played in: one of the best to ever play the game, without question. One of the first people I think of when I think "Korean Terran."
Really enjoying this series so far and looking forward to finding out who makes it! I will riot if my boy sOs gets gypped, but other than that I'm pretty open to being convinced about inclusion and placements.
I just wanted to give a shoutout to Elentos for helping out with the sample game selection. It was fun talking to various super fans to get their takes on their these legendary players.
BaBy/TY beat FlaSh twice back in the Kespa BW days. At an incredibly young age. And had a record above 55% in total. https://tl.net/tlpd/korean/players/575_TY/games. Doesn't do him justice IMO to call him mediocre in BW:
On January 18 2024 05:29 weyoun wrote: Combining two lists sc1/sc2 is an impossible task you cant mix broodwar and sc2 in 1 list , every possible result is just a pointless mess
but if i was forced to do it
flash/serral s tier jaedong/bisu/maru a tier
than you have only 5 spots left how can ty in it when you have terrans left like nada/mvp/boxer/iloveoov at least 3 of those 4 i would put higher than ty but than if you put ty in a top ten list there is no space left for players like
protoss like nalra/garimto/stork zergs like savior/july/yellow/dark/rogue + some more players i have missed out
ty cant be higher than all of those ty cant be in any top ten list
Pretty good on your first try
The S tier is pretty much the consensus goat flash and Serral
One of the most entertaining Terran players to watch in Korea. Brilliant strategists and great at thinking on the spot. Some of his tank positioning plays still bring back good memories.
Bet on TY if you want to turn around grim situations for Terran.
EPT![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GOAT2024/TY9/tyiem.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GOAT2024/TY9/tydreamhack.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GOAT2024/TY9/chart1.png)
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GOAT2024/TY9/chart2.png)
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GOAT2024/TY9/chart3.png)
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GOAT2024/TY9/chart4.png)
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MMA
