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On February 05 2024 00:48 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 00:31 Xamo wrote:
Yes, it does feel a bit like Miz is just listing "the greatest HotS players" more than anything (until now). But to me, that totally makes sense. The HotS days had the highest number of top-quality players competing. Plus, it was probably when the game was at its most balanced state - it felt like the best player usually came out on top, without the game's balance messing with the results too much.
Since then, though, things have changed a lot. Late LotV has had a decreasing number of top-quality competitors. And the balance in LotV hasn't just been worse; it's been all over the place with each patch - with an average trend of Z being favoured. This inconsistency really makes me second-guess how much the results really mean in LotV. For me it's harder to tell who's genuinely the best.
 Patience 
Ok so with Patience now officially leaked as #5, i guess Inno doesn't make the cut.
MVP 4, Rogue 3, Serral 2, Maru 1 would be my remaining list :-)
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On February 05 2024 02:28 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 01:09 Fango wrote:On February 04 2024 23:44 ejozl wrote:On January 28 2024 19:08 SharkStarcraft wrote:
I feel like leaving out Dark completely out of the top 10 ist not happening at this point, same for inno, and the other spots are locked for obvious reasons. but seriously - how can rain then make the top 10 and mvp doesn't?? they both had comparatively short peaks but MVPs resume and legacy is so much more impressive... also wasn't there a list similar to this like 10 years ago that also had rain at #10 and mvp at #1?? and now the latter is not present at all? hmmmmm maybe we're all in for a surprise after all hehe
great writeup once again! love reading these and following the discussions about who should be where and so on. Because this list is more: "the greatest HotS players list", or "proleague players who also had a few other noteworthy achievements list". But since these titles don't get the hype, it's not called that. In no world is: MVP>Rain>MC, so the list is a bit nonsense and Serral will not be no. 1, because he wasn't part of proleague, so in a way he's not in the competition, he'll just on the list so that it doesn't get discredited. You say that only half way through the list. Serral, INno, Maru, TY, Rogue, and Dark (if he's there) all had their best results in LotV, and even Zest was 50/50. Over half the list is going to end up with LotV players. Also, Proleague was the lifeblood of korean sc2 competition for years, of course most of the top 10 would have played in it. Other than Serral, how many players with top 10 resumes didn't play in proleague? And Mvp>Rain>MC is completely correct, I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise to be honest. Aye can’t disagree with that. MC was a great player but honestly I’d personally stick Taeja above him, never mind herO and Stats. Maru/Rogue/Serral feel a crapshoot for the number 1 slot. They’ve all got strong claims in certain areas and have a few gaps in their resumes and a lot comes down to how one weighs them. I’ve got my own preferred order but I don’t think any combo will be particularly outrageous.
Yeah it really comes down to preference.
Maru is the Proleague and Starleague GOAT, and has a 10 year run of consistent deep runs in everything.
Serral is the most dominant player and wins the h2h record against everyone
Rogue is the only player to win multiple World Championship and Starleagues.
Personally I think Maru has the best claim and Rogue has the worst. The only thing Maru falls behind in is World Championships but he still has more ro4+ runs in them than the other two, so it's not like he's a slouch in that department. While at the same time Rogue and Serral can't scratch his Proleague/Starleague results or longevity.
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I'm surprised to see this series won't be finished before Kato since the results there could definitely change things. If Maru wins it he'd go from debatable #1 to absolute lock. If Serral wins it his #1 claim is much stronger. At that point I would still personally consider Maru slightly ahead but I think the argument for Maru would have to bring in balance and the eras different competitive levels to justify it. Whereas right now I think Maru is still ahead even if Zerg was never OP and his Kespa era victories aren't worth more. At the least at that point I think Serral takes a fairly clear lead vs Rogue. Dark winning it would make either his potential exclusion even more odd or better justify his #5. Reynor winning it and you could make an argument for him being in the 9-10 range.
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I've also been furiously refreshing TL. The last few all came out every 3 days, but we've waited 9 days now for #5. I hope this means that #5-#1 are all gonna be in one post?? I also hope it'll come out before Katowice, since it's the best time to get engagement while everybody's pumped for the tournament
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On February 05 2024 04:56 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 02:28 WombaT wrote:On February 05 2024 01:09 Fango wrote:On February 04 2024 23:44 ejozl wrote:On January 28 2024 19:08 SharkStarcraft wrote:
I feel like leaving out Dark completely out of the top 10 ist not happening at this point, same for inno, and the other spots are locked for obvious reasons. but seriously - how can rain then make the top 10 and mvp doesn't?? they both had comparatively short peaks but MVPs resume and legacy is so much more impressive... also wasn't there a list similar to this like 10 years ago that also had rain at #10 and mvp at #1?? and now the latter is not present at all? hmmmmm maybe we're all in for a surprise after all hehe
great writeup once again! love reading these and following the discussions about who should be where and so on. Because this list is more: "the greatest HotS players list", or "proleague players who also had a few other noteworthy achievements list". But since these titles don't get the hype, it's not called that. In no world is: MVP>Rain>MC, so the list is a bit nonsense and Serral will not be no. 1, because he wasn't part of proleague, so in a way he's not in the competition, he'll just on the list so that it doesn't get discredited. You say that only half way through the list. Serral, INno, Maru, TY, Rogue, and Dark (if he's there) all had their best results in LotV, and even Zest was 50/50. Over half the list is going to end up with LotV players. Also, Proleague was the lifeblood of korean sc2 competition for years, of course most of the top 10 would have played in it. Other than Serral, how many players with top 10 resumes didn't play in proleague? And Mvp>Rain>MC is completely correct, I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise to be honest. Aye can’t disagree with that. MC was a great player but honestly I’d personally stick Taeja above him, never mind herO and Stats. Maru/Rogue/Serral feel a crapshoot for the number 1 slot. They’ve all got strong claims in certain areas and have a few gaps in their resumes and a lot comes down to how one weighs them. I’ve got my own preferred order but I don’t think any combo will be particularly outrageous. Maru is the Proleague and Starleague GOAT, and has a 10 year run of consistent deep runs in everything. Serral is the most dominant player and wins the h2h record against everyone.
Yes. In my view, this makes Serral the all-time GoaT, and Maru the Pro League and Star League GoaT, as you said.
Attempting to declare Maru the all-time GoaT, while simultaneously conceding that Serral is superior in terms of head-to-head record, not only to him, but also to the rest of all other top-tier players to me is a contradiction in terms.
I think many people here on TL interpret GoaT as meaning "the player with the most notable historical periods of relative dominance regardless of whether or not he has later been bested by others". And of course, that's a definition one can perfectly subscribe to.
But for me, it's a given that the GoaT of SCII is the player who is the greatest of all times at playing SCII. And that's Serral.
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I'm a little suspicious that there will be a copout with a tie somewhere. Maybe at #1 with Maru/Serral? I guess we'd know if that's coming well before the final few articles.
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On February 05 2024 08:15 Antithesis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 04:56 Fango wrote:On February 05 2024 02:28 WombaT wrote:On February 05 2024 01:09 Fango wrote:On February 04 2024 23:44 ejozl wrote:On January 28 2024 19:08 SharkStarcraft wrote:
I feel like leaving out Dark completely out of the top 10 ist not happening at this point, same for inno, and the other spots are locked for obvious reasons. but seriously - how can rain then make the top 10 and mvp doesn't?? they both had comparatively short peaks but MVPs resume and legacy is so much more impressive... also wasn't there a list similar to this like 10 years ago that also had rain at #10 and mvp at #1?? and now the latter is not present at all? hmmmmm maybe we're all in for a surprise after all hehe
great writeup once again! love reading these and following the discussions about who should be where and so on. Because this list is more: "the greatest HotS players list", or "proleague players who also had a few other noteworthy achievements list". But since these titles don't get the hype, it's not called that. In no world is: MVP>Rain>MC, so the list is a bit nonsense and Serral will not be no. 1, because he wasn't part of proleague, so in a way he's not in the competition, he'll just on the list so that it doesn't get discredited. You say that only half way through the list. Serral, INno, Maru, TY, Rogue, and Dark (if he's there) all had their best results in LotV, and even Zest was 50/50. Over half the list is going to end up with LotV players. Also, Proleague was the lifeblood of korean sc2 competition for years, of course most of the top 10 would have played in it. Other than Serral, how many players with top 10 resumes didn't play in proleague? And Mvp>Rain>MC is completely correct, I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise to be honest. Aye can’t disagree with that. MC was a great player but honestly I’d personally stick Taeja above him, never mind herO and Stats. Maru/Rogue/Serral feel a crapshoot for the number 1 slot. They’ve all got strong claims in certain areas and have a few gaps in their resumes and a lot comes down to how one weighs them. I’ve got my own preferred order but I don’t think any combo will be particularly outrageous. Maru is the Proleague and Starleague GOAT, and has a 10 year run of consistent deep runs in everything. Serral is the most dominant player and wins the h2h record against everyone. Yes. In my view, this makes Serral the all-time GoaT, and Maru the Pro League and Star League GoaT, as you said. Attempting to declare Maru the all-time GoaT, while simultaneously conceding that Serral is superior in terms of head-to-head record, not only to him, but also to the rest of all other top-tier players to me is a contradiction in terms. I think many people here on TL interpret GoaT as meaning "the player with the most notable historical periods of relative dominance regardless of whether or not he has later been bested by others". And of course, that's a definition one can perfectly subscribe to. But for me, it's a given that the GoaT of SCII is the player who is the greatest of all times at playing SCII. And that's Serral.
I think this is a common but minority definition of GOAT, and I personally don't like it.
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here?
Under your criterion, Harstem is the best player the game has ever produced, and has the best winrates against everybody. But I think you'd find very few people who would put Harstem above Fruitdealer in this [very hypothetical] scenario. Otherwise, the GOAT of any game will always be the current best player, (since the level of play in every game improves over time), so I don't think that criterion is an interesting one. Otherwise, we wouldn't have separate names for "the GOAT" and "the best player in the world."
It's such a lazy way to shut down what is otherwise a very interesting conversation. The question "who, given the tools of their time, seemed the most impressive?" which has so much room for conversation and discussion. But instead, the question "who would win the most against each other" results extremely rarely in interesting conversations: the more modern player almost invariably wins, regardless of sport or time period.
In other news, I will click refresh again. It's funny that the thread for Zest (which is probably the least controversial pick so far) has the most activity, simply because everybody is chatting on here while waiting for #5 to come out! Not complaining, I just think it's funny, and shows that we're all super invested in this list 
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As an aside I'll say I'm very happy with how resilient the scene turned out to be this last year. I know there was talk that the GOAT debate was over (in terms of important accomplishments) because this was "it", but all the tournaments have been such high quality that I don't think people would say that anymore. Still plenty of history to be written
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On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here?
I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play.
But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status.
On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
The question "who, given the tools of their time, seemed the most impressive?" which has so much room for conversation and discussion.
Yes. But as mentioned above, Serral and Maru have played the exact same game, using "the tools of their time", for more than six years. And it is exactly in these six years that Serral has accumulated his positive record against Maru and all the other players.
On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
But instead, the question "who would win the most against each other" results extremely rarely in interesting conversations: the more modern player almost invariably wins, regardless of sport or time period.
This is true. But again, it is not really material to the debate about Serral vs. Maru, because Serral and Maru have simultaneously played in the same era for more than six years. It's not a matter of "the classical player" against "the modern player", unless you do not consider Maru a modern player.
Furthermore, while I agree that historical performance is important, I think it is equally important not to make it a necessary condition for GoaTness. Otherwise, no person could ever achieve the GoaT status, in any game, unless they have played it from the time of its inception, which is absurd. For example, according to this interpretation, neither Kasparov or Carlsen, nor LeBron James could be the GoaTs of their respective sports.
On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
Otherwise, we wouldn't have separate names for "the GOAT" and "the best player in the world."
Facts about words (or symbols tout court) say nothing about concepts. We also have the separate phrases "bachelor" and "unmarried man", and still they denote the same concept.
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On February 05 2024 08:15 Antithesis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 04:56 Fango wrote:On February 05 2024 02:28 WombaT wrote:On February 05 2024 01:09 Fango wrote:On February 04 2024 23:44 ejozl wrote:On January 28 2024 19:08 SharkStarcraft wrote:
I feel like leaving out Dark completely out of the top 10 ist not happening at this point, same for inno, and the other spots are locked for obvious reasons. but seriously - how can rain then make the top 10 and mvp doesn't?? they both had comparatively short peaks but MVPs resume and legacy is so much more impressive... also wasn't there a list similar to this like 10 years ago that also had rain at #10 and mvp at #1?? and now the latter is not present at all? hmmmmm maybe we're all in for a surprise after all hehe
great writeup once again! love reading these and following the discussions about who should be where and so on. Because this list is more: "the greatest HotS players list", or "proleague players who also had a few other noteworthy achievements list". But since these titles don't get the hype, it's not called that. In no world is: MVP>Rain>MC, so the list is a bit nonsense and Serral will not be no. 1, because he wasn't part of proleague, so in a way he's not in the competition, he'll just on the list so that it doesn't get discredited. You say that only half way through the list. Serral, INno, Maru, TY, Rogue, and Dark (if he's there) all had their best results in LotV, and even Zest was 50/50. Over half the list is going to end up with LotV players. Also, Proleague was the lifeblood of korean sc2 competition for years, of course most of the top 10 would have played in it. Other than Serral, how many players with top 10 resumes didn't play in proleague? And Mvp>Rain>MC is completely correct, I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise to be honest. Aye can’t disagree with that. MC was a great player but honestly I’d personally stick Taeja above him, never mind herO and Stats. Maru/Rogue/Serral feel a crapshoot for the number 1 slot. They’ve all got strong claims in certain areas and have a few gaps in their resumes and a lot comes down to how one weighs them. I’ve got my own preferred order but I don’t think any combo will be particularly outrageous. Maru is the Proleague and Starleague GOAT, and has a 10 year run of consistent deep runs in everything. Serral is the most dominant player and wins the h2h record against everyone. Yes. In my view, this makes Serral the all-time GoaT, and Maru the Pro League and Star League GoaT, as you said. Attempting to declare Maru the all-time GoaT, while simultaneously conceding that Serral is superior in terms of head-to-head record, not only to him, but also to the rest of all other top-tier players to me is a contradiction in terms.
You need to realise there are far, far more achievements in sc2 than h2h record. Like for example, results in tournaments. Along with championships, consistency, longevity, winning in different formats, winning in times of rough balance, impact on the game etc.
And if nothing else, players peak and compete in different eras and tournaments. Hell, Maru was already high on the GOAT list before Serral was a full time player. Serral overtook Maru in h2h in 2021. They actually barely played until the online era.
Simply put, a player can have the greater career accomplishments while not winning the head to head record. Additionally, some tournaments are just less important, who cares if you have a winning h2h if the other guy won when it mattered?
Proleague and Starleagues were the pinnacle of sc2 competition for most of it's existence. And Serral never even tried to compete in them, two entire formats of SC2 (arguably the most challenging and competitive ones, or least challenging in different ways) that he did nothing in. Like I said, Serral wins in h2h and Weekend tournaments, but Maru crushes everyone in Starleague/Proleague by a bigger margin. And has a much longer record of winning in different eras and adapting to different metas
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On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status.
I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral.
Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time.
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Northern Ireland24787 Posts
On February 05 2024 10:53 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 08:15 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 04:56 Fango wrote:On February 05 2024 02:28 WombaT wrote:On February 05 2024 01:09 Fango wrote:On February 04 2024 23:44 ejozl wrote:On January 28 2024 19:08 SharkStarcraft wrote:
I feel like leaving out Dark completely out of the top 10 ist not happening at this point, same for inno, and the other spots are locked for obvious reasons. but seriously - how can rain then make the top 10 and mvp doesn't?? they both had comparatively short peaks but MVPs resume and legacy is so much more impressive... also wasn't there a list similar to this like 10 years ago that also had rain at #10 and mvp at #1?? and now the latter is not present at all? hmmmmm maybe we're all in for a surprise after all hehe
great writeup once again! love reading these and following the discussions about who should be where and so on. Because this list is more: "the greatest HotS players list", or "proleague players who also had a few other noteworthy achievements list". But since these titles don't get the hype, it's not called that. In no world is: MVP>Rain>MC, so the list is a bit nonsense and Serral will not be no. 1, because he wasn't part of proleague, so in a way he's not in the competition, he'll just on the list so that it doesn't get discredited. You say that only half way through the list. Serral, INno, Maru, TY, Rogue, and Dark (if he's there) all had their best results in LotV, and even Zest was 50/50. Over half the list is going to end up with LotV players. Also, Proleague was the lifeblood of korean sc2 competition for years, of course most of the top 10 would have played in it. Other than Serral, how many players with top 10 resumes didn't play in proleague? And Mvp>Rain>MC is completely correct, I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise to be honest. Aye can’t disagree with that. MC was a great player but honestly I’d personally stick Taeja above him, never mind herO and Stats. Maru/Rogue/Serral feel a crapshoot for the number 1 slot. They’ve all got strong claims in certain areas and have a few gaps in their resumes and a lot comes down to how one weighs them. I’ve got my own preferred order but I don’t think any combo will be particularly outrageous. Maru is the Proleague and Starleague GOAT, and has a 10 year run of consistent deep runs in everything. Serral is the most dominant player and wins the h2h record against everyone. Yes. In my view, this makes Serral the all-time GoaT, and Maru the Pro League and Star League GoaT, as you said. Attempting to declare Maru the all-time GoaT, while simultaneously conceding that Serral is superior in terms of head-to-head record, not only to him, but also to the rest of all other top-tier players to me is a contradiction in terms. You need to realise there are far, far more achievements in sc2 than h2h record. Like for example, results in tournaments. Along with championships, consistency, longevity, winning in different formats, winning in times of rough balance, impact on the game etc. And if nothing else, players peak and compete in different eras and tournaments. Hell, Maru was already high on the GOAT list before Serral was a full time player. Serral overtook Maru in h2h in 2021. They actually barely played until the online era. Simply put, a player can have the greater career accomplishments while not winning the head to head record. Additionally, some tournaments are just less important, who cares if you have a winning h2h if the other guy won when it mattered? Proleague and Starleagues were the pinnacle of sc2 competition for most of it's existence. And Serral never even tried to compete in them, two entire formats of SC2 (arguably the most challenging and competitive ones, or least challenging in different ways) that he did nothing in. Like I said, Serral wins in h2h and Weekend tournaments, but Maru crushes everyone in Starleague/Proleague by a bigger margin. And has a much longer record of winning in different eras and adapting to different metas
Possibly controversial opinion but I think Proleague can be somewhat overrated when looking at an individual in GOAT sense.
Great competition and high-level games though it gave us. Purely because of what makes it great, a lot of prep and its team nature. And how does one quantify the teamwork element and the collaboration within? How many of those wins are down to your team, or down to a coach planning something you grind and grind down?
I mean I think this is still a factor in prep individual tournaments too, albeit less so, but it does add a bunch of (pretty much unknowable) variables into the equation. How good’s your team, your collective set planning, where are you entering a match? Does the other team try to snipe your super-ace, or send out a sacrificial lamb to focus on other sets?
Again not a knock on Proleague, I do love different formats, prep and genuine team competition, but I don’t think it translates on a 1:1 when we’re talking individual greatness for the aforementioned reasons.
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On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time.
Maru didn't do much in the "most competitive era" either, atleast not in Solo-tournaments. 2 Premier wins (and 1 second place) in HotS ranks him kind of in the field of Dear, Soulkey and LiquidHerO. Which leaves Proleague, which is always hard to judge. Yes he had great stats eventually, but that always heavily depends on your team aswell. Also, if you put up Teamleague scores high up, you also have to filter in the results of that team - and while Jin Air didn't do terrible, I wouldn't necessarily put them up as the best Proleague team ever either.
Also...can we retire that "Serral did so much worse in the first few years"-thing? Dude literally still went to school and was not a fulltime-progamer. Of course he did badly or was somewhere in the middle at best. I highly doubt he even could have done much before the age of atleast 16 in Europe.
The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser"
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On February 05 2024 15:00 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time. The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser"
Not true. Serral went fulltime in 2017, and did not manage to win any notable tournaments in that year.
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On February 05 2024 15:00 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time. Maru didn't do much in the "most competitive era" either, atleast not in Solo-tournaments. 2 Premier wins (and 1 second place) in HotS ranks him kind of in the field of Dear, Soulkey and LiquidHerO. Which leaves Proleague, which is always hard to judge. Yes he had great stats eventually, but that always heavily depends on your team aswell. Also, if you put up Teamleague scores high up, you also have to filter in the results of that team - and while Jin Air didn't do terrible, I wouldn't necessarily put them up as the best Proleague team ever either. Also...can we retire that "Serral did so much worse in the first few years"-thing? Dude literally still went to school and was not a fulltime-progamer. Of course he did badly or was somewhere in the middle at best. I highly doubt he even could have done much before the age of atleast 16 in Europe. The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser"
I mean, Maru is literally just one year older than Serral. Obviously culture differences and whatever regarding video games influences their ability to play. But my point is really that it's stupid to look at head to head when Serral wasn't even relevant yet. Maru was relevant in 2012 and one of the best of 2013. Despite being 16!
Also, Maru won WCS KR, and placed top 4 in almost every other event in 2013. I'd argue he was a top 10 player for every year since then except 2016. And being top 10 back then was actually impressive, whereas now it means very little. But I'm really not that bothered by people considering Serral a bigger GOAT than Maru. I just don't think that being good in the current 2020+ era counts for much any more. I'm far more impressed with a GSL win any time between 2012 and 2016 than I am with a global finals win today.
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On February 05 2024 15:24 Luolis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 15:00 Balnazza wrote:On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time. The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser" Not true. Serral went fulltime in 2017, and did not manage to win any notable tournaments in that year.
It is not only a "cultural difference" - you simply couldn't go pro with 13 in Europe. Not possible, neither legally nor economically.
On February 05 2024 16:02 Blargh wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 15:00 Balnazza wrote:On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time. Maru didn't do much in the "most competitive era" either, atleast not in Solo-tournaments. 2 Premier wins (and 1 second place) in HotS ranks him kind of in the field of Dear, Soulkey and LiquidHerO. Which leaves Proleague, which is always hard to judge. Yes he had great stats eventually, but that always heavily depends on your team aswell. Also, if you put up Teamleague scores high up, you also have to filter in the results of that team - and while Jin Air didn't do terrible, I wouldn't necessarily put them up as the best Proleague team ever either. Also...can we retire that "Serral did so much worse in the first few years"-thing? Dude literally still went to school and was not a fulltime-progamer. Of course he did badly or was somewhere in the middle at best. I highly doubt he even could have done much before the age of atleast 16 in Europe. The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser" I mean, Maru is literally just one year older than Serral. Obviously culture differences and whatever regarding video games influences their ability to play. But my point is really that it's stupid to look at head to head when Serral wasn't even relevant yet. Maru was relevant in 2012 and one of the best of 2013. Despite being 16! Also, Maru won WCS KR, and placed top 4 in almost every other event in 2013. I'd argue he was a top 10 player for every year since then except 2016. And being top 10 back then was actually impressive, whereas now it means very little. But I'm really not that bothered by people considering Serral a bigger GOAT than Maru. I just don't think that being good in the current 2020+ era counts for much any more. I'm far more impressed with a GSL win any time between 2012 and 2016 than I am with a global finals win today.
It is not only a "cultural difference", it is simply not possible to go pro with 13 in Europe. Neither legally nor economically (at the time atleast). Maru went basically pro with 13, which is of course impressive, but it also means he gets to be treated like every other fulltime player, which doesn't make sense to do for Serral pre-2017/18 (or any other player who needed some more time, nothing wrong with that - it is actually quite hard to get into an established gaming scene).
As for your metric to decide the "GOAT"ness of a player: That is of course totally fine, but I just want to point out that Maru being the best can be tricky by that metric. If 2012-2016 are THE years that really count, then Maru is just "kinda there"...mostly a promise that never really fulfilled itself. He only became the very best korean after those years. So basically your GOAT has the defining feature of being young enough that he could stay relevant and "outlived" every other top player instead of surpassing them.
Which I personally wouldn't say, but I count everything after Proleague shutdown aswell. But if 2012-2016 is the important metric above everything else...we have to talk about a lot of other players before we mention Maru...
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Northern Ireland24787 Posts
On February 05 2024 17:12 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 15:24 Luolis wrote:On February 05 2024 15:00 Balnazza wrote:On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time. The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser" Not true. Serral went fulltime in 2017, and did not manage to win any notable tournaments in that year. It is not only a "cultural difference" - you simply couldn't go pro with 13 in Europe. Not possible, neither legally nor economically. Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 16:02 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 15:00 Balnazza wrote:On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time. Maru didn't do much in the "most competitive era" either, atleast not in Solo-tournaments. 2 Premier wins (and 1 second place) in HotS ranks him kind of in the field of Dear, Soulkey and LiquidHerO. Which leaves Proleague, which is always hard to judge. Yes he had great stats eventually, but that always heavily depends on your team aswell. Also, if you put up Teamleague scores high up, you also have to filter in the results of that team - and while Jin Air didn't do terrible, I wouldn't necessarily put them up as the best Proleague team ever either. Also...can we retire that "Serral did so much worse in the first few years"-thing? Dude literally still went to school and was not a fulltime-progamer. Of course he did badly or was somewhere in the middle at best. I highly doubt he even could have done much before the age of atleast 16 in Europe. The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser" I mean, Maru is literally just one year older than Serral. Obviously culture differences and whatever regarding video games influences their ability to play. But my point is really that it's stupid to look at head to head when Serral wasn't even relevant yet. Maru was relevant in 2012 and one of the best of 2013. Despite being 16! Also, Maru won WCS KR, and placed top 4 in almost every other event in 2013. I'd argue he was a top 10 player for every year since then except 2016. And being top 10 back then was actually impressive, whereas now it means very little. But I'm really not that bothered by people considering Serral a bigger GOAT than Maru. I just don't think that being good in the current 2020+ era counts for much any more. I'm far more impressed with a GSL win any time between 2012 and 2016 than I am with a global finals win today. It is not only a "cultural difference", it is simply not possible to go pro with 13 in Europe. Neither legally nor economically (at the time atleast). Maru went basically pro with 13, which is of course impressive, but it also means he gets to be treated like every other fulltime player, which doesn't make sense to do for Serral pre-2017/18 (or any other player who needed some more time, nothing wrong with that - it is actually quite hard to get into an established gaming scene). As for your metric to decide the "GOAT"ness of a player: That is of course totally fine, but I just want to point out that Maru being the best can be tricky by that metric. If 2012-2016 are THE years that really count, then Maru is just "kinda there"...mostly a promise that never really fulfilled itself. He only became the very best korean after those years. So basically your GOAT has the defining feature of being young enough that he could stay relevant and "outlived" every other top player instead of surpassing them. Which I personally wouldn't say, but I count everything after Proleague shutdown aswell. But if 2012-2016 is the important metric above everything else...we have to talk about a lot of other players before we mention Maru...
Aye, and this goes for Rogue even more than Maru, if we’re talking results at SC2’s peak competitive era thru now.
As I’ve said before it’s not a knock on Maru, but his age, getting picked up early, not having to do military service and having an uninterrupted career from the early days thru now are quite fortuitous.
I think it’s perfectly fair to acknowledge the dip in the competitive depth of the scene, so long as people are somewhat consistent in applying a standard.
If Serral’s accomplishments don’t carry as much weight, coming as they do from 2018-now, than they would if he’d been posting similar results like 2012-17, I don’t disagree with that, I don’t think any reasonable observer would.
But Rogue hoovered up much of his honours in that span, and all of his Starleagues. Maru still hasn’t got that WC but most of his international weekenders likewise, and that was something of a gap in his resume.
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On February 05 2024 17:12 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 15:24 Luolis wrote:On February 05 2024 15:00 Balnazza wrote:On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time. The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser" Not true. Serral went fulltime in 2017, and did not manage to win any notable tournaments in that year. It is not only a "cultural difference" - you simply couldn't go pro with 13 in Europe. Not possible, neither legally nor economically.
This is related to my post.... how?
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On February 05 2024 17:58 Luolis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 17:12 Balnazza wrote:On February 05 2024 15:24 Luolis wrote:On February 05 2024 15:00 Balnazza wrote:On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time. The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser" Not true. Serral went fulltime in 2017, and did not manage to win any notable tournaments in that year. It is not only a "cultural difference" - you simply couldn't go pro with 13 in Europe. Not possible, neither legally nor economically. This is related to my post.... how?
I think it was semi-relevant to both mine and yours, since I was discussing the cultural / legal differences that may have allowed Maru to play in GSL, but not allow Serral to compete. Though I do believe Maru was still going to school through 2012-13. Its relevancy to yours is simply that he wouldn't have been able to go fulltime before 2017. Clearly, both competed in tournaments during that time, but I think it's safe to say the environment in Korea made it more accessible for kids to play video games competitively.
Anyway, I don't really know how one balances whether someone played during an era, or their inability to due to X circumstances, or whatever. Since Serral still competed (including WCS), I'm assuming he was able to compete in everything, and the only thing that stopped him from winning WCS Finals in 2013 was his inability to perform. There obviously are valid reasons for why he wasn't able to perform at the Korean level then, like the fact that he was a kid in Europe without team houses and Korean esport culture. But no one gets evaluated on what one could've hypothetically done if the circumstances were different. One can only get evaluated on how they actually do.
I think the argument between Maru and Serral really comes down to how much one weights being good in the HotS era vs the LotV era. Maru has been close to the best in both, but Serral has been definitively the best for LotV alone.
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Northern Ireland24787 Posts
On February 05 2024 18:18 Blargh wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2024 17:58 Luolis wrote:On February 05 2024 17:12 Balnazza wrote:On February 05 2024 15:24 Luolis wrote:On February 05 2024 15:00 Balnazza wrote:On February 05 2024 11:18 Blargh wrote:On February 05 2024 10:11 Antithesis wrote:On February 05 2024 08:55 yubo56 wrote:
SC2 has been out since 2010. Imagine that somebody wins every single tournament until 2022; we can pretend this is Fruitdealer. Then a second player comes onto the scene and wins everything from 2022-present, who we can pretend is Harstem. Suppose that the head-to-head is heavily in favor of Harstem, who has a significantly positive head-to-head vs Fruitdealer and everybody else in the scene. Who would you call the GOAT here? I agree that head-to-head record or overall ranking is not the sole criterion for the GoaT; in my view, it's just, almost by definition, the most important one. But surely other criteria are relevant, too. One such criterion, as you imply, is the duration of dominance; another one is the ratio between that figure to the overall time active in competitive play. But this leads to the second thing: The hypothetical scenario is not faithful to reality anyway, because Serral's dominance has not occured over a tiny fraction of the game's lifetime; it has persisted for the most part of more than six years, which is almost half of the age of SCII. Furthermore, Serral has been more consistent in his results than any other player who has ever touched the game. So even the other two aforementioned criteria do not challenge Serral's status. I think you're being silly about this. Serral was effectively not relevant for any of the MOST COMPETITIVE era of the game (2012 to 2016). He couldn't even have a head to head with Maru for years because he was never even competitive enough to face him until 2016, with their first match being 2018, despite being a player since at least 2012. You are forcefully ignoring the fact that Serral sucked for 4 years, only becoming top-tier in LotV. Maru on the other hand had been a relevant player for almost his entire career and almost the entire length of the game. The head to head actually doesn't matter when they hadn't even faced each other for 7 years of the game. After all, according to head-to-head, Welmu is better than Serral. Serral is still amazing. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. But it's ridiculous to say you only get graded for the time you were good at the game and not the years you were bad when we're talking about all time. The first year Serral went fulltime pro, he literally crushed everyone and became World Champion. That's what is important. Comparing the numbers before that is really like saying "Lol, LeBron James did throw his first basket with 10 and couldn't beat any NBA player, what a loser" Not true. Serral went fulltime in 2017, and did not manage to win any notable tournaments in that year. It is not only a "cultural difference" - you simply couldn't go pro with 13 in Europe. Not possible, neither legally nor economically. This is related to my post.... how? I think it was semi-relevant to both mine and yours, since I was discussing the cultural / legal differences that may have allowed Maru to play in GSL, but not allow Serral to compete. Though I do believe Maru was still going to school through 2012-13. Its relevancy to yours is simply that he wouldn't have been able to go fulltime before 2017. Clearly, both competed in tournaments during that time, but I think it's safe to say the environment in Korea made it more accessible for kids to play video games competitively. Anyway, I don't really know how one balances whether someone played during an era, or their inability to due to X circumstances, or whatever. Since Serral still competed (including WCS), I'm assuming he was able to compete in everything, and the only thing that stopped him from winning WCS Finals in 2013 was his inability to perform. There obviously are valid reasons for why he wasn't able to perform at the Korean level then, like the fact that he was a kid in Europe without team houses and Korean esport culture. But no one gets evaluated on what one could've hypothetically done if the circumstances were different. One can only get evaluated on how they actually do. I think the argument between Maru and Serral really comes down to how much one weights being good in the HotS era vs the LotV era. Maru has been close to the best in both, but Serral has been definitively the best for LotV alone.
I believe 16 is the cutoff for WCS events ESL oversees, so Serral was gated to a certain degree.
IIRC Reynor got out of groups (can’t remember if Ro16 or Ro8 off hand) before he made his WCS Europe debut
But yeah that caveat aside 100% agree with your post. Hypotheticals can go in any kind of direction. Does Serral even want to go full time before he’s of age? Maybe he does a Creator and bursts through at like 15 only to subsequently not live up to that potential for quite some time. Or maybe he hits the ground running and starts winning a few tournaments a year before he did on the real timeline.
It’s pure speculation as to how his development goes really, mentality and being in a good place is so impactful on results after all, so couching arguments around it seems a fool’s errand to me.
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