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Balance threads suck.. But, just like you need to have a beer and bitch about work on a Friday afternoon, sometimes you gotta have a place to post your unreasonable balance takes on TL. |
Northern Ireland24264 Posts
On February 13 2024 23:12 DropBear wrote:
I haven't followed Sc2 since Wings of Liberty, but I was drawn to this thread for some reason and thought I'd have a look in TLPD to see who Serral is and the ELO ranking there has him 19th, but it's for HotS.
Is ELO still calculated? The top 10 someone posted on the front page seems to have numbers way too high to be the same formula
There’s a website called Aligulac that uses a similar but different (iirc) system and is now the sort of standardised stat repository for the scene.
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Bunny, in recent match history:
vs Clem: 1-2 (loss)
vs Stats: 2-0 (win)
vs Cure 0-2 (loss)
vs Oliveira: 0-2 (loss)
vs Shin: 2-1 (win)
vs DRG: 1-4 (loss)
vs Oliveira: 1-2 (loss)
vs Firefly: 0-2 (loss)
vs Hero: 0-2 (loss)
vs Hero: 0-2 (loss)
Let's take a look how Maxpax did vs these in his most recent match recorded:.
Maxpax vs Clem: 3-0 (ESL cup; end of January)
Maxpax vs Stats 1-1 (SCboy WTL 2023 Winter; October 22) OR 2-1 (Kung Fu Cup; May 3rd)
Maxpax vs Cure: 2-3 (SC2 Online OSC Championship season 11; februari first) or 2-0 (ESL cup; January first)
Maxpax vs Oliveira: 2-0 (Esl Open Cup)
Maxpax vs Shin: 1-3 (SC2 Online OSC Chamionship season 11; februari first) or 2-0 (Master's Coliseum #7 Main event; January 16)
Maxpax vs DRG: 2-0 (SCBoy WTL 2023 Summer; May 8th)
Maxpax vs Firefly: 2-0 (Master's Coliseum, January 14)
Maxpax vs Hero: 2-3 (Master's Coliseum; January 23) or 3-1 (Wardi TV, January 21st)
There is a definitive argument to be made that Aligulac is not perfect in the sense that it can't rate the "impact" of different games. It gives an equal amount of points to winning in a Katowice final as to winning in an ESL open cup. In that sense, it's probably a bit unfair to compare Maxpax to Bunny's performance in the way I do here. So yes, the winnings of Maxpax have to be put in context, because the context of the game is important too.
90% estimated win chance for Maxpax vs Bunny is probably an exaggeration. But given the data, it's probably not that far off with estimating Maxpax over Bunny.
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On February 13 2024 21:46 AdrianHealeyy wrote:
I mean: as long as we understand that Serral's worst match up is still the match up in which he is the best in the world. Serral currently has the highest rating of every player vs zerg. There is no one as good vs Zerg than Serral at the moment.
Let's take a look at the claim 'If it wasn't for Serral, Zerg would still win the majority of tournaments'.
- Iem Katowice: Serral vs Maru final. => Terran
- Master's Colloseum: Serral vs Hero final => Protoss
-- Esl Master's Winter: Clem vs Serral => Clem actually won so => Terran
- ESL master's winter Euripe: Serral vs Clem => Terran
- GSL => Sollar vs Gumiho => Zerg
- Master's colloseum 6: Serral vs Cure => Terran
- Gamers 8 => Reynor vs Cure => Zerg
- GSL => Maru vs Dark => Terran
- ESL masters Summer= > Serral vs Gumiho => Terran
- Esl Masters summer Europe => Serral vs Maxpax => Protoss
- GSL => Maru vs Cure => Terran
- IEM Katowice => Oliveire vs Maru => Terran
So if Serral didn't exist, we would have in the premier tournaments, since katowice 2023:
8 terran wins
2 protoss wins
2 zerg wins
The methodology I used was just to look at the final and take the other finalists, if it was against serral, as the actual winner. You can argue that this is a problematic methodology and it is, in a sense, but it's a reasonable approximation for the purpose of this.
Now, let's say 'Serral' is his own race. If we then look at the major tournaments, here are the victories for the 4 races:
- Zerg: 2
- Serral: 6
- Protoss: 0
- Terran: 4
Take into account that in 3 of these serral did not participate (gsl), that means Serral won 6 out of 9 tournaments he participated in. And if he didn't exist, all 6 of those would have been won by a terran or protoss, because none of those were a zvz final.
Let's look at it even more detailled:
- Iem Katowice 2024: The other zerg semi-finalist was Dark, who already lost earlier 2-0 to maru.
- Master's colloseum: Hero was beaten by Reynor, but also beat Reynor in the loser's final. So toss up if that had gone to zerg or not imo.
- Master's winter Europe: Serral beat Reynor in the winner's bracket, Clem beat Reynor in the Loser's bracket. So again, a reasonable toss up. But just like before: it was the non-zerg who went through to the final.
- Master's Collosseum 6: Serral was actually knocked down to the loser bracket (3-1 by Clem). Serral then proceeded to go 19-3 in maps vs Lambo, Dark, Maxpax, Maru, Byun and Cure. But anyway. If Serral didn't exist, this would easily been taken by one of terrans.
- Esl masters summer: we would perhaps have had a final between Reynor and Gumiho. This could have been won by a zerg, yes.
- Esl masters summer europe: serral was the only zerg semi-finalists. A protoss or terran would reasonably have taken this.
I mean: if we just look at the objective available evidence, claims such as 'the lion's share of big tournaments would go to zerg' appears to be not true. It would probably be far more equal to the extend that we can deduce something based on counterfactual data estimates. I realize that this isn't a perfect method by any stretch of the imagination, but the evidence definitely doesn't support wide accusations of 'it would be zerg anyway!!'
Why did you ask me what my criteria for "big tournament" was if you're just going to ignore it and use all Premier tournaments xD Do you not think it's important that for years all but one of the "World Championships" have been won by 5 different Zergs (Serral, Reynor, Rogue, Dark, Soo)?
IEM 2024 - Serral beats Maru
GSL Code S S3 2023 - Solar beats Gumiho
GSL Code S S2 2023 - Maru beats Dark
Gamers8 2023 - Reynor Beats Cure
GSl Code S S1 2023 - Maru beats Cure
IEM 2023 - Oliviera beats Maru
GSL Code S S3 2022 - Maru Beats Ragnarok
GSL Code S S2 2022 - HerO beats Maru
GSL Code S S1 2022 - Rogue beats Creator
IEM Katowice 2022 - Serral beats Reynor
GSL Code S S3 2021 - Cure beats Zest
GSL Code S S2 2021 - Dark beats Trap
GSL Code S S1 2021 - Rogue beats Maru
IEM Katowice 2021 - Reynor beats Zest
GSL Code S S3 2020 - Ty beats Maru
GSL Code S S2 2020 - Rogue Beats Stats
GSL Code S S1 2020 - TY beats Cure
IEM Katowice 2020 - Rogue beats Zest
Blizzcon 2019 - Dark beats Reynor
Code S S3 2019 0 Rogue beats Trap
Code S S2 2019 - Dark beats Trap
Code S S1 2019 - Maru beats Classic
WESG 2018 - Innovation beats Serral
IEM 2019 - Soo beats stats
Blizzcon 2018 - Serral beats Stats
Code S S3 2018 - Maru beats TY
Code S S2 2018 - Maru beats Zest
Code S S1 2018 - Maru beats Stats
WESG 2017 - Maru beats Dark
IEM 2018 - Rogue beats Classic
Blizzcon 2017 - Rogue beats soO
SSL S2 2017 - Stats beats Dark
Code S S3 2017 - Innovation beats sOs
Code S S2 2017 - Gumiho beats Soo
SSL S1 2017 - Innovation beats Solar
Code S S1 2017 - Stats beats soo
IEM 2017 - Ty beats Stats
WESG 2016 - Ty beats Maru
So even if we include Code S where Serral doesn't participate and which doesn't have huge prize pools Zerg still edges Terran out and that's with Maru carrying the race via in GSL.
Z - 15
T - 13
P - 1
If we go back to 2017, which is the last time Protoss won something big regularly, only then Terran pulls ahead and that's the year before Serral's rise
Z - 17
T - 18
P - 3
I think we know what happens if you remove GSL...
There is clearly something going on here. Zergs can seem to just turn on the jets in the biggest tournament and win most of them, while Protoss players are only stuck winning the smaller tournaments with lower prize pools and people care less about.
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The fact that this post was written because a terran lost, after 5 years of protoss basically winning nothing, in a context where terran is probably the most favoured race balance-wise, is evidence that when the death of Starcraft 2 as an e-sport happens, it will be deserved.
That being said, I want to add that it's a bit annoying when people say "Serral is actually very good", because 1) everybody knows that, you're not answering anyone's argument, 2) You're implicitly saying that everyone else is not very good and therefore not deserving, and 3) Even people who are very good are affected by balance, you can watch Serral play PvZ in 2019 and watch him play PvZ today, if you think it's the same thing you basically don't understand PvZ.
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On February 13 2024 23:32 WombaT wrote: (3482) MaxPax 0-0 Bunny (2849)
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43.23% 3-0 0-3 1.45%
31.63% 3-1 1-3 3.29%
15.42% 3-2 2-3 4.97%
-----------------------------------------
90.29% 9.71%
Median outcome: MaxPax 3-1 Bunny Not to belabour the point but there’s flawed and there’s almost useless. I don’t think there’s anyone here that gives a 90% chance of MaxPax beating Bunny, a player with more tangible competitive achievements in a meaningful tournament.
I agree with Aligulac tending to overrate players who play in a lot of online cups but I think the Bunny vs. Maxpax comparison is a bit unfair. If we're talking non-premier online events, I would favor Maxpax massively. Maybe not to the extent Aligulac does, but the Glicko system it uses simply isn't all that well suited for sc2 (or any game with an element of luck); it underrates the winrate of underdogs in lopsided matchups because the formula for winrate as a function of rating difference is too simple. So this is a problem not unique to the Bunny/Maxpax matchup or to online vs. offline players in general. It would also overrate Maxpax's chances of beating an online grinder with significantly lower rating.
That said, Maxpax has generally underperformed in (online) premiers but I'll give him the benefit of doubt and say that this is in no small part due to nerves and inexperience with higher stakes games.
As for Serral, the people (not so much in this thread but I've seen it often) who say that his rating is inflated are off mark IMO. He gained rating vs. supposedly underrated Korean players at Katowice. While there indeed used to be a significant disparity between Korean and non-Korean ratings back when the players pools where more divided, it's significantly diminished now, at least for the top players. Took a while for it to even out of course.
Look at the rating changes for Katowice: The Korean players gained about 1.5 points on average while the non-Koreans lost 3.5. So while Koreans did perform better than Aligulac expected, it was a minor difference. Compare this to major international events back in the day where Korean players would regularly make massive rating gains, stomping similarly rated foreigners.
Moreover, if you restrict to the top 6 for each group (arbitrary cutoff at roughly the top half), the foreigners went +11 to the Koreans' -1, so they actually overperformed on average.
Also, look at the events Serral plays in these days. Except for the EU regionals and Homestory Cups, they all include Korean players and since he makes deep runs, he plays them often. If there were a substantial rating gap, Serral should be calibrated pretty well to the Korean level, except possibly right after EU tournaments.
The truth is simply that Serral is the best player in the world right now, and by a large margin at that. Even with all the results he's had through the last 6 years, I don't think he's ever looked further ahead of the competition. Even that crazy ZvP win streak he had back in 2020 is arguably not as good as the one he's on now: it was longer, both in time and in matches, but included far more map losses.
You could argue that the shrinking player base and decreasing level of competition in Korea plays a role here but that doesn't really seem to be the argument people are making.
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On February 14 2024 00:07 AdrianHealeyy wrote:
Bunny, in recent match history:
vs Clem: 1-2 (loss)
vs Stats: 2-0 (win)
vs Cure 0-2 (loss)
vs Oliveira: 0-2 (loss)
vs Shin: 2-1 (win)
vs DRG: 1-4 (loss)
vs Oliveira: 1-2 (loss)
vs Firefly: 0-2 (loss)
vs Hero: 0-2 (loss)
vs Hero: 0-2 (loss)
Let's take a look how Maxpax did vs these in his most recent match recorded:.
Maxpax vs Clem: 3-0 (ESL cup; end of January)
Maxpax vs Stats 1-1 (SCboy WTL 2023 Winter; October 22) OR 2-1 (Kung Fu Cup; May 3rd)
Maxpax vs Cure: 2-3 (SC2 Online OSC Championship season 11; februari first) or 2-0 (ESL cup; January first)
Maxpax vs Oliveira: 2-0 (Esl Open Cup)
Maxpax vs Shin: 1-3 (SC2 Online OSC Chamionship season 11; februari first) or 2-0 (Master's Coliseum #7 Main event; January 16)
Maxpax vs DRG: 2-0 (SCBoy WTL 2023 Summer; May 8th)
Maxpax vs Firefly: 2-0 (Master's Coliseum, January 14)
Maxpax vs Hero: 2-3 (Master's Coliseum; January 23) or 3-1 (Wardi TV, January 21st)
There is a definitive argument to be made that Aligulac is not perfect in the sense that it can't rate the "impact" of different games. It gives an equal amount of points to winning in a Katowice final as to winning in an ESL open cup. In that sense, it's probably a bit unfair to compare Maxpax to Bunny's performance in the way I do here. So yes, the winnings of Maxpax have to be put in context, because the context of the game is important too.
90% estimated win chance for Maxpax vs Bunny is probably an exaggeration. But given the data, it's probably not that far off with estimating Maxpax over Bunny.
Yeah Aligulac is a great tool but can't be taken in a vacuum. If you are a bit knowledgeable about the scene it's a good addon.
For example some players thrives offline, others are chokers, so obviously you take that into account to make an educated guess.
Maxpax doesn't play offline at all so it's basically useless to take his rating into account for imaginary matches. His score is only relevant to the environment in which he operates.
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On February 14 2024 00:43 Nebuchad wrote:
The fact that this post was written because a terran lost, after 5 years of protoss basically winning nothing, in a context where terran is probably the most favoured race balance-wise, ...
... in a premier tournament where literally five out of the top 8 players were terran, while zero of the top 8 players were protoss, is testimony to a mind-boggling level of audacity.
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On February 14 2024 00:32 NoMacroNoHonour wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2024 21:46 AdrianHealeyy wrote:
I mean: as long as we understand that Serral's worst match up is still the match up in which he is the best in the world. Serral currently has the highest rating of every player vs zerg. There is no one as good vs Zerg than Serral at the moment.
Let's take a look at the claim 'If it wasn't for Serral, Zerg would still win the majority of tournaments'.
- Iem Katowice: Serral vs Maru final. => Terran
- Master's Colloseum: Serral vs Hero final => Protoss
-- Esl Master's Winter: Clem vs Serral => Clem actually won so => Terran
- ESL master's winter Euripe: Serral vs Clem => Terran
- GSL => Sollar vs Gumiho => Zerg
- Master's colloseum 6: Serral vs Cure => Terran
- Gamers 8 => Reynor vs Cure => Zerg
- GSL => Maru vs Dark => Terran
- ESL masters Summer= > Serral vs Gumiho => Terran
- Esl Masters summer Europe => Serral vs Maxpax => Protoss
- GSL => Maru vs Cure => Terran
- IEM Katowice => Oliveire vs Maru => Terran
So if Serral didn't exist, we would have in the premier tournaments, since katowice 2023:
8 terran wins
2 protoss wins
2 zerg wins
The methodology I used was just to look at the final and take the other finalists, if it was against serral, as the actual winner. You can argue that this is a problematic methodology and it is, in a sense, but it's a reasonable approximation for the purpose of this.
Now, let's say 'Serral' is his own race. If we then look at the major tournaments, here are the victories for the 4 races:
- Zerg: 2
- Serral: 6
- Protoss: 0
- Terran: 4
Take into account that in 3 of these serral did not participate (gsl), that means Serral won 6 out of 9 tournaments he participated in. And if he didn't exist, all 6 of those would have been won by a terran or protoss, because none of those were a zvz final.
Let's look at it even more detailled:
- Iem Katowice 2024: The other zerg semi-finalist was Dark, who already lost earlier 2-0 to maru.
- Master's colloseum: Hero was beaten by Reynor, but also beat Reynor in the loser's final. So toss up if that had gone to zerg or not imo.
- Master's winter Europe: Serral beat Reynor in the winner's bracket, Clem beat Reynor in the Loser's bracket. So again, a reasonable toss up. But just like before: it was the non-zerg who went through to the final.
- Master's Collosseum 6: Serral was actually knocked down to the loser bracket (3-1 by Clem). Serral then proceeded to go 19-3 in maps vs Lambo, Dark, Maxpax, Maru, Byun and Cure. But anyway. If Serral didn't exist, this would easily been taken by one of terrans.
- Esl masters summer: we would perhaps have had a final between Reynor and Gumiho. This could have been won by a zerg, yes.
- Esl masters summer europe: serral was the only zerg semi-finalists. A protoss or terran would reasonably have taken this.
I mean: if we just look at the objective available evidence, claims such as 'the lion's share of big tournaments would go to zerg' appears to be not true. It would probably be far more equal to the extend that we can deduce something based on counterfactual data estimates. I realize that this isn't a perfect method by any stretch of the imagination, but the evidence definitely doesn't support wide accusations of 'it would be zerg anyway!!'
Why did you ask me what my criteria for "big tournament" was if you're just going to ignore it and use all Premier tournaments xD Do you not think it's important that for years all but one of the "World Championships" have been won by 5 different Zergs (Serral, Reynor, Rogue, Dark, Soo)? + Show Spoiler +
IEM 2024 - Serral beats Maru
GSL Code S S3 2023 - Solar beats Gumiho
GSL Code S S2 2023 - Maru beats Dark
Gamers8 2023 - Reynor Beats Cure
GSl Code S S1 2023 - Maru beats Cure
IEM 2023 - Oliviera beats Maru
GSL Code S S3 2022 - Maru Beats Ragnarok
GSL Code S S2 2022 - HerO beats Maru
GSL Code S S1 2022 - Rogue beats Creator
IEM Katowice 2022 - Serral beats Reynor
GSL Code S S3 2021 - Cure beats Zest
GSL Code S S2 2021 - Dark beats Trap
GSL Code S S1 2021 - Rogue beats Maru
IEM Katowice 2021 - Reynor beats Zest
GSL Code S S3 2020 - Ty beats Maru
GSL Code S S2 2020 - Rogue Beats Stats
GSL Code S S1 2020 - TY beats Cure
IEM Katowice 2020 - Rogue beats Zest
Blizzcon 2019 - Dark beats Reynor
Code S S3 2019 0 Rogue beats Trap
Code S S2 2019 - Dark beats Trap
Code S S1 2019 - Maru beats Classic
WESG 2018 - Innovation beats Serral
IEM 2019 - Soo beats stats
Blizzcon 2018 - Serral beats Stats
Code S S3 2018 - Maru beats TY
Code S S2 2018 - Maru beats Zest
Code S S1 2018 - Maru beats Stats
WESG 2017 - Maru beats Dark
IEM 2018 - Rogue beats Classic
Blizzcon 2017 - Rogue beats soO
SSL S2 2017 - Stats beats Dark
Code S S3 2017 - Innovation beats sOs
Code S S2 2017 - Gumiho beats Soo
SSL S1 2017 - Innovation beats Solar
Code S S1 2017 - Stats beats soo
IEM 2017 - Ty beats Stats
WESG 2016 - Ty beats Maru
So even if we include Code S where Serral doesn't participate and which doesn't have huge prize pools Zerg still edges Terran out and that's with Maru carrying the race via in GSL.
Z - 15
T - 13
P - 1
If we go back to 2017, which is the last time Protoss won something big regularly, only then Terran pulls ahead and that's the year before Serral's rise
Z - 17
T - 18
P - 3
I think we know what happens if you remove GSL...
There is clearly something going on here. Zergs can seem to just turn on the jets in the biggest tournament and win most of them, while Protoss players are only stuck winning the smaller tournaments with lower prize pools and people care less about.
I don't think it's relevant to include multiple different balance patches to comment on current racial balance? That's a different point altogether.
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Northern Ireland24264 Posts
On February 14 2024 00:49 Zzzapper wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2024 23:32 WombaT wrote: (3482) MaxPax 0-0 Bunny (2849)
-----------------------------------------
43.23% 3-0 0-3 1.45%
31.63% 3-1 1-3 3.29%
15.42% 3-2 2-3 4.97%
-----------------------------------------
90.29% 9.71%
Median outcome: MaxPax 3-1 Bunny Not to belabour the point but there’s flawed and there’s almost useless. I don’t think there’s anyone here that gives a 90% chance of MaxPax beating Bunny, a player with more tangible competitive achievements in a meaningful tournament. I agree with Aligulac tending to overrate players who play in a lot of online cups but I think the Bunny vs. Maxpax comparison is a bit unfair. If we're talking non-premier online events, I would favor Maxpax massively. Maybe not to the extent Aligulac does, but the Glicko system it uses simply isn't all that well suited for sc2 (or any game with an element of luck); it underrates the winrate of underdogs in lopsided matchups because the formula for winrate as a function of rating difference is too simple. So this is a problem not unique to the Bunny/Maxpax matchup or to online vs. offline players in general. It would also overrate Maxpax's chances of beating an online grinder with significantly lower rating. That said, Maxpax has generally underperformed in (online) premiers but I'll give him the benefit of doubt and say that this is in no small part due to nerves and inexperience with higher stakes games. As for Serral, the people (not so much in this thread but I've seen it often) who say that his rating is inflated are off mark IMO. He gained rating vs. supposedly underrated Korean players at Katowice. While there indeed used to be a significant disparity between Korean and non-Korean ratings back when the players pools where more divided, it's significantly diminished now, at least for the top players. Took a while for it to even out of course. Look at the rating changes for Katowice: The Korean players gained about 1.5 points on average while the non-Koreans lost 3.5. So while Koreans did perform better than Aligulac expected, it was a minor difference. Compare this to major international events back in the day where Korean players would regularly make massive rating gains, stomping similarly rated foreigners. Moreover, if you restrict to the top 6 for each group (arbitrary cutoff at roughly the top half), the foreigners went +11 to the Koreans' -1, so they actually overperformed on average. Also, look at the events Serral plays in these days. Except for the EU regionals and Homestory Cups, they all include Korean players and since he makes deep runs, he plays them often. If there were a substantial rating gap, Serral should be calibrated pretty well to the Korean level, except possibly right after EU tournaments. The truth is simply that Serral is the best player in the world right now, and by a large margin at that. Even with all the results he's had through the last 6 years, I don't think he's ever looked further ahead of the competition. Even that crazy ZvP win streak he had back in 2020 is arguably not as good as the one he's on now: it was longer, both in time and in matches, but included far more map losses. You could argue that the shrinking player base and decreasing level of competition in Korea plays a role here but that doesn't really seem to be the argument people are making.
On Serral, yeah agreed. He plays WTL and at worst major and usually premier tournaments, and his rating is reflective of his results in those domains. He barely ever plays weeklies, his result set is mostly from real meaningful tournament play.
Which isn’t the case with MaxPax at all. His numbers would be more meaningful if the likes of Serral and Reynor consistently played weeklies, but they don’t.
Regardless of that, I still do think MaxPax has the best PvP in the world currently, that’s absolutely fair. But in a meaningful tournament do you really fancy him to go deep versus say herO? I don’t think many would, but I may be wrong so I’ll include a poll!
Poll: Who would you bet on to make it deep in a Premier?herO (16) 73% MaxPax (6) 27% 22 total votes Your vote: Who would you bet on to make it deep in a Premier? (Vote): herO
(Vote): MaxPax
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I think Maxpax has the potential to be to protoss what Serral is to zerg if he keeps playing, but honestly I wouldn't want him to become that, it would take so much more effort than it took Clem or Serral, and there won't be as much reward as there is for them because obviously he can only tie the best zergs or terrans, if he ever has better results than them he will be patched out immediately.
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How many times have we witnessed Maru/Clem losing a game because their key units got fungaled?
I Really have to disagree here tho, its by their own doing.. Terran stubborness to make a Raven ...., Maru even made like 10 turrets everywhere instead of just creating a freaking Raven ....
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On February 14 2024 01:21 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 00:49 Zzzapper wrote:On February 13 2024 23:32 WombaT wrote: (3482) MaxPax 0-0 Bunny (2849)
-----------------------------------------
43.23% 3-0 0-3 1.45%
31.63% 3-1 1-3 3.29%
15.42% 3-2 2-3 4.97%
-----------------------------------------
90.29% 9.71%
Median outcome: MaxPax 3-1 Bunny Not to belabour the point but there’s flawed and there’s almost useless. I don’t think there’s anyone here that gives a 90% chance of MaxPax beating Bunny, a player with more tangible competitive achievements in a meaningful tournament. I agree with Aligulac tending to overrate players who play in a lot of online cups but I think the Bunny vs. Maxpax comparison is a bit unfair. If we're talking non-premier online events, I would favor Maxpax massively. Maybe not to the extent Aligulac does, but the Glicko system it uses simply isn't all that well suited for sc2 (or any game with an element of luck); it underrates the winrate of underdogs in lopsided matchups because the formula for winrate as a function of rating difference is too simple. So this is a problem not unique to the Bunny/Maxpax matchup or to online vs. offline players in general. It would also overrate Maxpax's chances of beating an online grinder with significantly lower rating. That said, Maxpax has generally underperformed in (online) premiers but I'll give him the benefit of doubt and say that this is in no small part due to nerves and inexperience with higher stakes games. As for Serral, the people (not so much in this thread but I've seen it often) who say that his rating is inflated are off mark IMO. He gained rating vs. supposedly underrated Korean players at Katowice. While there indeed used to be a significant disparity between Korean and non-Korean ratings back when the players pools where more divided, it's significantly diminished now, at least for the top players. Took a while for it to even out of course. Look at the rating changes for Katowice: The Korean players gained about 1.5 points on average while the non-Koreans lost 3.5. So while Koreans did perform better than Aligulac expected, it was a minor difference. Compare this to major international events back in the day where Korean players would regularly make massive rating gains, stomping similarly rated foreigners. Moreover, if you restrict to the top 6 for each group (arbitrary cutoff at roughly the top half), the foreigners went +11 to the Koreans' -1, so they actually overperformed on average. Also, look at the events Serral plays in these days. Except for the EU regionals and Homestory Cups, they all include Korean players and since he makes deep runs, he plays them often. If there were a substantial rating gap, Serral should be calibrated pretty well to the Korean level, except possibly right after EU tournaments. The truth is simply that Serral is the best player in the world right now, and by a large margin at that. Even with all the results he's had through the last 6 years, I don't think he's ever looked further ahead of the competition. Even that crazy ZvP win streak he had back in 2020 is arguably not as good as the one he's on now: it was longer, both in time and in matches, but included far more map losses. You could argue that the shrinking player base and decreasing level of competition in Korea plays a role here but that doesn't really seem to be the argument people are making. On Serral, yeah agreed. He plays WTL and at worst major and usually premier tournaments, and his rating is reflective of his results in those domains. He barely ever plays weeklies, his result set is mostly from real meaningful tournament play. Which isn’t the case with MaxPax at all. His numbers would be more meaningful if the likes of Serral and Reynor consistently played weeklies, but they don’t. Regardless of that, I still do think MaxPax has the best PvP in the world currently, that’s absolutely fair. But in a meaningful tournament do you really fancy him to go deep versus say herO? I don’t think many would, but I may be wrong so I’ll include a poll! Poll: Who would you bet on to make it deep in a Premier?herO (16) 73% MaxPax (6) 27% 22 total votes Your vote: Who would you bet on to make it deep in a Premier? (Vote): herO
(Vote): MaxPax
I don't think we need a poll for that, at this point it would be kinda crazy to suggest otherwise.
Granted, Maxpax is still improving at a steady pace and with time he might get there. Unfortunately, even if he did get to a Serral/Maru kind of level in a few years, it seems likely that the scene will have declined too much for that to be all that meaningful.
My point about Aligulac was more that if you follow the game and spend some time thinking aboout how its ratings behave, it's not that hard to figure out it specific issues and what players it tends to misestimate. Rogue is probably the best example, he never made #1 and iirc was only even top 5 in brief periods after his big wins. But then, everyone had a hard time anticipating exactly when he would show up in that seemingly unbeatable top form and when he would go out unceremoniously in a first group stage
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I wish I could blame balance for Maru's loss but if I'm being honest I can't anymore. 2023 and now 2024 is the first time the "it's just Serral" crowd was actually correct. Without Serral Zerg wouldn't have done as bad as Toss but it would have been a mediocre performance for sure and Terran would have outperformed Zerg dramatically. Even if you remove Maru and Serral together. He is unbelievably good right now. I do think many of his past results including his other Kato did have significant balance issues though and reverse was true back then. If you removed Maru and Serral together it was Terran that was hurt far worse.
Looking at their series Maru's problem was the same here as it has been in most of his international losses for the last few years including to Cyan in this very event. He just gets read and predicted so easily and then tilta. Against most players he is so much better that it doesn't matter but every now and then someone like Cyan will make him look like a fool with a couple perfect builds. And against Serral he of course just can't afford to get read like this at all.
Serral seemed to know that those roach builds in games 1 and 3 would kill him on those maps at those moments. It was perfect build choices against how Maru was playing. Maru needs to be less predictable.
In their one macro game Maru actually looked like the better player imo if it was any map that was possible to split he would have won. Even without the map split he probably could have won if his control was just a bit better. 2018 Maru wins that game. It's a shame Terran is so hard on players bodies. Every Terran great has had extreme wrist/shoulder issues which has led to noticeable mechanical loss. The occasional Zerg has too but nowhere to the same extent. If Clem starts having wrist/shoulder issues in the next couple years I think it becomes definitive that there is just something about Terran that makes it impossible to play long term without breaking your body.
Game 4 was just sad. Maru was clearly tilted and ready for the series to be done. He had given up and didn't care enough to go for a respectable match score. It's sad because that's the one game he actually got a big lead in. Put him in a similar position in game 1 or 2 and he wins for sure but he had already decided he was done. It's unfortunate because a 4-1 or 4-2 would have been a far more fun series.
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Northern Ireland24264 Posts
On February 14 2024 03:03 JJH777 wrote:
I wish I could blame balance for Maru's loss but if I'm being honest I can't anymore. 2023 and now 2024 is the first time the "it's just Serral" crowd was actually correct. Without Serral Zerg wouldn't have done as bad as Toss but it would have been a mediocre performance for sure and Terran would have outperformed Zerg dramatically. Even if you remove Maru and Serral together. He is unbelievably good right now. I do think many of his past results including his other Kato did have significant balance issues though and reverse was true back then. If you removed Maru and Serral together it was Terran that was hurt far worse.
Looking at their series Maru's problem was the same here as it has been in most of his international losses for the last few years including to Cyan in this very event. He just gets read and predicted so easily and then tilta. Against most players he is so much better that it doesn't matter but every now and then someone like Cyan will make him look like a fool with a couple perfect builds. And against Serral he of course just can't afford to get read like this at all.
Serral seemed to know that those roach builds in games 1 and 3 would kill him on those maps at those moments. It was perfect build choices against how Maru was playing. Maru needs to be less predictable.
In their one macro game Maru actually looked like the better player imo if it was any map that was possible to split he would have won. Even without the map split he probably could have won if his control was just a bit better. 2018 Maru wins that game. It's a shame Terran is so hard on players bodies. Every Terran great has had extreme wrist/shoulder issues which has led to noticeable mechanical loss. The occasional Zerg has too but nowhere to the same extent. If Clem starts having wrist/shoulder issues in the next couple years I think it becomes definitive that there is just something about Terran that makes it impossible to play long term without breaking your body.
Game 4 was just sad. Maru was clearly tilted and ready for the series to be done. He had given up and didn't care enough to go for a respectable match score. It's sad because that's the one game he actually got a big lead in. Put him in a similar position in game 1 or 2 and he wins for sure but he had already decided he was done. It's unfortunate because a 4-1 or 4-2 would have been a far more fun series.
Agreed, especially the bolded and I think I said as much myself, if not in this specific thread, then elsewhere.
If Maru isn’t just straight up more skilled than an opponent, or if someone on his level hard counters him with prep, he comes unstuck quite frequently. It’s just rarely an issue because he just is straight up more skilled than most.
Most of Maru’s biggest body of work come in GSL, and he’s got the benefit of his team to help him prep and work his gameplan out. When left to his own devices he’s prone to making bad calls in set planning and he can get away with it against players he can just outplay, he can’t get away with it against a Serral.
This isn’t to discount his greatness, absolutely not. But it’s basically the longest pro career in the scene, and a pattern we’ve seen again, and again, and again. Enough times for it to be a pattern worth recognising. When untethered from SoS prior to doing battle, who my headcanon just assumes was GAGW’s chief planner given his skillset, it’s SoS who dismantles Maru at Blizzcon. When Maru’s got Reynor on match point after resolutely dismantling him in macro games, he picks garbage builds, and in one case even executes a garbage build game badly and gets reverse swept. After forever being basically unassailable with a TvT that while not precluding aggression, whose defining feature was resolute, superior tactical and positional play and defensive solidity, Maru picks a WC final to start donating armies against a player he’s absolutely better than.
How many times does it have to happen before the conclusion is that Maru is monstrously skilled, and will stomp anyone on his day, but he’s just not clutch outside of GSL and that format? And likewise his Proleague record, as impressive as it was I do regard that as being a team effort.
Maru is greater than Mvp, I think most would agree there. But does anyone think Maru could be competitive if injury impacted his mechanics to the degree he couldn’t play his favoured styles, have a micro or macro advantage and remain relevant with pure brains and set planning, as Mvp did?
I’m aware Maru has had injury issues before anyone mentions!
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On February 14 2024 00:32 NoMacroNoHonour wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2024 21:46 AdrianHealeyy wrote:
I mean: as long as we understand that Serral's worst match up is still the match up in which he is the best in the world. Serral currently has the highest rating of every player vs zerg. There is no one as good vs Zerg than Serral at the moment.
Let's take a look at the claim 'If it wasn't for Serral, Zerg would still win the majority of tournaments'.
- Iem Katowice: Serral vs Maru final. => Terran
- Master's Colloseum: Serral vs Hero final => Protoss
-- Esl Master's Winter: Clem vs Serral => Clem actually won so => Terran
- ESL master's winter Euripe: Serral vs Clem => Terran
- GSL => Sollar vs Gumiho => Zerg
- Master's colloseum 6: Serral vs Cure => Terran
- Gamers 8 => Reynor vs Cure => Zerg
- GSL => Maru vs Dark => Terran
- ESL masters Summer= > Serral vs Gumiho => Terran
- Esl Masters summer Europe => Serral vs Maxpax => Protoss
- GSL => Maru vs Cure => Terran
- IEM Katowice => Oliveire vs Maru => Terran
So if Serral didn't exist, we would have in the premier tournaments, since katowice 2023:
8 terran wins
2 protoss wins
2 zerg wins
The methodology I used was just to look at the final and take the other finalists, if it was against serral, as the actual winner. You can argue that this is a problematic methodology and it is, in a sense, but it's a reasonable approximation for the purpose of this.
Now, let's say 'Serral' is his own race. If we then look at the major tournaments, here are the victories for the 4 races:
- Zerg: 2
- Serral: 6
- Protoss: 0
- Terran: 4
Take into account that in 3 of these serral did not participate (gsl), that means Serral won 6 out of 9 tournaments he participated in. And if he didn't exist, all 6 of those would have been won by a terran or protoss, because none of those were a zvz final.
Let's look at it even more detailled:
- Iem Katowice 2024: The other zerg semi-finalist was Dark, who already lost earlier 2-0 to maru.
- Master's colloseum: Hero was beaten by Reynor, but also beat Reynor in the loser's final. So toss up if that had gone to zerg or not imo.
- Master's winter Europe: Serral beat Reynor in the winner's bracket, Clem beat Reynor in the Loser's bracket. So again, a reasonable toss up. But just like before: it was the non-zerg who went through to the final.
- Master's Collosseum 6: Serral was actually knocked down to the loser bracket (3-1 by Clem). Serral then proceeded to go 19-3 in maps vs Lambo, Dark, Maxpax, Maru, Byun and Cure. But anyway. If Serral didn't exist, this would easily been taken by one of terrans.
- Esl masters summer: we would perhaps have had a final between Reynor and Gumiho. This could have been won by a zerg, yes.
- Esl masters summer europe: serral was the only zerg semi-finalists. A protoss or terran would reasonably have taken this.
I mean: if we just look at the objective available evidence, claims such as 'the lion's share of big tournaments would go to zerg' appears to be not true. It would probably be far more equal to the extend that we can deduce something based on counterfactual data estimates. I realize that this isn't a perfect method by any stretch of the imagination, but the evidence definitely doesn't support wide accusations of 'it would be zerg anyway!!'
So even if we include Code S where Serral doesn't participate and which doesn't have huge prize pools Zerg still edges Terran out and that's with Maru carrying the race via in GSL. Z - 15 T - 13 P - 1
So you are making a big deal out of this, how Zerg is "is far ahead over every other race, even without Serral" and then...it is by a margin of TWO wins? I don't think tournament wins are any real balance-indicator, but if they were...mate, I get that Protoss is pissed, but TWO tournaments won more actually in your mind make Zerg imba compared to Terran? What?
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Northern Ireland24264 Posts
On February 14 2024 03:28 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 00:32 NoMacroNoHonour wrote:On February 13 2024 21:46 AdrianHealeyy wrote:
I mean: as long as we understand that Serral's worst match up is still the match up in which he is the best in the world. Serral currently has the highest rating of every player vs zerg. There is no one as good vs Zerg than Serral at the moment.
Let's take a look at the claim 'If it wasn't for Serral, Zerg would still win the majority of tournaments'.
- Iem Katowice: Serral vs Maru final. => Terran
- Master's Colloseum: Serral vs Hero final => Protoss
-- Esl Master's Winter: Clem vs Serral => Clem actually won so => Terran
- ESL master's winter Euripe: Serral vs Clem => Terran
- GSL => Sollar vs Gumiho => Zerg
- Master's colloseum 6: Serral vs Cure => Terran
- Gamers 8 => Reynor vs Cure => Zerg
- GSL => Maru vs Dark => Terran
- ESL masters Summer= > Serral vs Gumiho => Terran
- Esl Masters summer Europe => Serral vs Maxpax => Protoss
- GSL => Maru vs Cure => Terran
- IEM Katowice => Oliveire vs Maru => Terran
So if Serral didn't exist, we would have in the premier tournaments, since katowice 2023:
8 terran wins
2 protoss wins
2 zerg wins
The methodology I used was just to look at the final and take the other finalists, if it was against serral, as the actual winner. You can argue that this is a problematic methodology and it is, in a sense, but it's a reasonable approximation for the purpose of this.
Now, let's say 'Serral' is his own race. If we then look at the major tournaments, here are the victories for the 4 races:
- Zerg: 2
- Serral: 6
- Protoss: 0
- Terran: 4
Take into account that in 3 of these serral did not participate (gsl), that means Serral won 6 out of 9 tournaments he participated in. And if he didn't exist, all 6 of those would have been won by a terran or protoss, because none of those were a zvz final.
Let's look at it even more detailled:
- Iem Katowice 2024: The other zerg semi-finalist was Dark, who already lost earlier 2-0 to maru.
- Master's colloseum: Hero was beaten by Reynor, but also beat Reynor in the loser's final. So toss up if that had gone to zerg or not imo.
- Master's winter Europe: Serral beat Reynor in the winner's bracket, Clem beat Reynor in the Loser's bracket. So again, a reasonable toss up. But just like before: it was the non-zerg who went through to the final.
- Master's Collosseum 6: Serral was actually knocked down to the loser bracket (3-1 by Clem). Serral then proceeded to go 19-3 in maps vs Lambo, Dark, Maxpax, Maru, Byun and Cure. But anyway. If Serral didn't exist, this would easily been taken by one of terrans.
- Esl masters summer: we would perhaps have had a final between Reynor and Gumiho. This could have been won by a zerg, yes.
- Esl masters summer europe: serral was the only zerg semi-finalists. A protoss or terran would reasonably have taken this.
I mean: if we just look at the objective available evidence, claims such as 'the lion's share of big tournaments would go to zerg' appears to be not true. It would probably be far more equal to the extend that we can deduce something based on counterfactual data estimates. I realize that this isn't a perfect method by any stretch of the imagination, but the evidence definitely doesn't support wide accusations of 'it would be zerg anyway!!'
So even if we include Code S where Serral doesn't participate and which doesn't have huge prize pools Zerg still edges Terran out and that's with Maru carrying the race via in GSL. Z - 15 T - 13 P - 1 So you are making a big deal out of this, how Zerg is "is far ahead over every other race, even without Serral" and then...it is by a margin of TWO wins? I don't think tournament wins are any real balance-indicator, but if they were...mate, I get that Protoss is pissed, but TWO tournaments won more actually in your mind make Zerg imba compared to Terran? What?
Yeah I mean ‘edges’ is the operative word in ‘edges out’. It’s close enough for someone to have a monster tournament, or a big favourite to have a bad one to swing it.
Zerg and Terran trading complaints as a Protoss observer is like two supermodels quibbling over who’s fatter and uglier with each other while I’m unable to get up from my chair to join in the conversation because I’m that damn morbidly obese
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MaxPax has to win some serious online tournaments before I can really hold him above herO.
Clem was often criticized for unable to match his online success with offline tournaments. But he has an AMAZING resume of online achievement! 5 fucking DH Europe titles, each one won by beating Serral or Reynor or even both of them! That's wild stuff. If Clem hasn't played offline all these years, you bet I will be hyped to think about how he will change the landscape if he does play.
MaxPax won a few Major tournaments but haven't done anything close to what Clem did on Premiere online tournaments. Farming those 500$ weeklies is not cutting it for me. He looks like someone that's between herO and Showtime, closer to Classic, while Protoss will definitely welcome another elite players, he doesn't look like someone that will actually make huge difference to the scene once he starts playing offline.
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On February 14 2024 03:25 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 03:03 JJH777 wrote:
I wish I could blame balance for Maru's loss but if I'm being honest I can't anymore. 2023 and now 2024 is the first time the "it's just Serral" crowd was actually correct. Without Serral Zerg wouldn't have done as bad as Toss but it would have been a mediocre performance for sure and Terran would have outperformed Zerg dramatically. Even if you remove Maru and Serral together. He is unbelievably good right now. I do think many of his past results including his other Kato did have significant balance issues though and reverse was true back then. If you removed Maru and Serral together it was Terran that was hurt far worse.
Looking at their series Maru's problem was the same here as it has been in most of his international losses for the last few years including to Cyan in this very event. He just gets read and predicted so easily and then tilta. Against most players he is so much better that it doesn't matter but every now and then someone like Cyan will make him look like a fool with a couple perfect builds. And against Serral he of course just can't afford to get read like this at all.
Serral seemed to know that those roach builds in games 1 and 3 would kill him on those maps at those moments. It was perfect build choices against how Maru was playing. Maru needs to be less predictable.
In their one macro game Maru actually looked like the better player imo if it was any map that was possible to split he would have won. Even without the map split he probably could have won if his control was just a bit better. 2018 Maru wins that game. It's a shame Terran is so hard on players bodies. Every Terran great has had extreme wrist/shoulder issues which has led to noticeable mechanical loss. The occasional Zerg has too but nowhere to the same extent. If Clem starts having wrist/shoulder issues in the next couple years I think it becomes definitive that there is just something about Terran that makes it impossible to play long term without breaking your body.
Game 4 was just sad. Maru was clearly tilted and ready for the series to be done. He had given up and didn't care enough to go for a respectable match score. It's sad because that's the one game he actually got a big lead in. Put him in a similar position in game 1 or 2 and he wins for sure but he had already decided he was done. It's unfortunate because a 4-1 or 4-2 would have been a far more fun series. Agreed, especially the bolded and I think I said as much myself, if not in this specific thread, then elsewhere. If Maru isn’t just straight up more skilled than an opponent, or if someone on his level hard counters him with prep, he comes unstuck quite frequently. It’s just rarely an issue because he just is straight up more skilled than most. Most of Maru’s biggest body of work come in GSL, and he’s got the benefit of his team to help him prep and work his gameplan out. When left to his own devices he’s prone to making bad calls in set planning and he can get away with it against players he can just outplay, he can’t get away with it against a Serral. This isn’t to discount his greatness, absolutely not. But it’s basically the longest pro career in the scene, and a pattern we’ve seen again, and again, and again. Enough times for it to be a pattern worth recognising. When untethered from SoS prior to doing battle, who my headcanon just assumes was GAGW’s chief planner given his skillset, it’s SoS who dismantles Maru at Blizzcon. When Maru’s got Reynor on match point after resolutely dismantling him in macro games, he picks garbage builds, and in one case even executes a garbage build game badly and gets reverse swept. After forever being basically unassailable with a TvT that while not precluding aggression, whose defining feature was resolute, superior tactical and positional play and defensive solidity, Maru picks a WC final to start donating armies against a player he’s absolutely better than. How many times does it have to happen before the conclusion is that Maru is monstrously skilled, and will stomp anyone on his day, but he’s just not clutch outside of GSL and that format? And likewise his Proleague record, as impressive as it was I do regard that as being a team effort. Maru is greater than Mvp, I think most would agree there. But does anyone think Maru could be competitive if injury impacted his mechanics to the degree he couldn’t play his favoured styles, have a micro or macro advantage and remain relevant with pure brains and set planning, as Mvp did? I’m aware Maru has had injury issues before anyone mentions!
I agree with pretty much everything here about Maru.
Funny you should mention Mvp. I was just thinking that even in 2024, 12 years after Mvp was relevant to the top level of competition, we have still never seen a Terran player who could plan a series as well as Mvp. If Maru was as good as Mvp at planning a Bo7 vs someone who is his mechanical equal in many parts of the game, maybe Serral still wins, but it would take 7 games to get there.
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United States1804 Posts
On February 14 2024 04:51 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 03:25 WombaT wrote:On February 14 2024 03:03 JJH777 wrote:
I wish I could blame balance for Maru's loss but if I'm being honest I can't anymore. 2023 and now 2024 is the first time the "it's just Serral" crowd was actually correct. Without Serral Zerg wouldn't have done as bad as Toss but it would have been a mediocre performance for sure and Terran would have outperformed Zerg dramatically. Even if you remove Maru and Serral together. He is unbelievably good right now. I do think many of his past results including his other Kato did have significant balance issues though and reverse was true back then. If you removed Maru and Serral together it was Terran that was hurt far worse.
Looking at their series Maru's problem was the same here as it has been in most of his international losses for the last few years including to Cyan in this very event. He just gets read and predicted so easily and then tilta. Against most players he is so much better that it doesn't matter but every now and then someone like Cyan will make him look like a fool with a couple perfect builds. And against Serral he of course just can't afford to get read like this at all.
Serral seemed to know that those roach builds in games 1 and 3 would kill him on those maps at those moments. It was perfect build choices against how Maru was playing. Maru needs to be less predictable.
In their one macro game Maru actually looked like the better player imo if it was any map that was possible to split he would have won. Even without the map split he probably could have won if his control was just a bit better. 2018 Maru wins that game. It's a shame Terran is so hard on players bodies. Every Terran great has had extreme wrist/shoulder issues which has led to noticeable mechanical loss. The occasional Zerg has too but nowhere to the same extent. If Clem starts having wrist/shoulder issues in the next couple years I think it becomes definitive that there is just something about Terran that makes it impossible to play long term without breaking your body.
Game 4 was just sad. Maru was clearly tilted and ready for the series to be done. He had given up and didn't care enough to go for a respectable match score. It's sad because that's the one game he actually got a big lead in. Put him in a similar position in game 1 or 2 and he wins for sure but he had already decided he was done. It's unfortunate because a 4-1 or 4-2 would have been a far more fun series. Agreed, especially the bolded and I think I said as much myself, if not in this specific thread, then elsewhere. If Maru isn’t just straight up more skilled than an opponent, or if someone on his level hard counters him with prep, he comes unstuck quite frequently. It’s just rarely an issue because he just is straight up more skilled than most. Most of Maru’s biggest body of work come in GSL, and he’s got the benefit of his team to help him prep and work his gameplan out. When left to his own devices he’s prone to making bad calls in set planning and he can get away with it against players he can just outplay, he can’t get away with it against a Serral. This isn’t to discount his greatness, absolutely not. But it’s basically the longest pro career in the scene, and a pattern we’ve seen again, and again, and again. Enough times for it to be a pattern worth recognising. When untethered from SoS prior to doing battle, who my headcanon just assumes was GAGW’s chief planner given his skillset, it’s SoS who dismantles Maru at Blizzcon. When Maru’s got Reynor on match point after resolutely dismantling him in macro games, he picks garbage builds, and in one case even executes a garbage build game badly and gets reverse swept. After forever being basically unassailable with a TvT that while not precluding aggression, whose defining feature was resolute, superior tactical and positional play and defensive solidity, Maru picks a WC final to start donating armies against a player he’s absolutely better than. How many times does it have to happen before the conclusion is that Maru is monstrously skilled, and will stomp anyone on his day, but he’s just not clutch outside of GSL and that format? And likewise his Proleague record, as impressive as it was I do regard that as being a team effort. Maru is greater than Mvp, I think most would agree there. But does anyone think Maru could be competitive if injury impacted his mechanics to the degree he couldn’t play his favoured styles, have a micro or macro advantage and remain relevant with pure brains and set planning, as Mvp did? I’m aware Maru has had injury issues before anyone mentions! I agree with pretty much everything here about Maru. Funny you should mention Mvp. I was just thinking that even in 2024, 12 years after Mvp was relevant to the top level of competition, we have still never seen a Terran player who could plan a series as well as Mvp. If Maru was as good as Mvp at planning a Bo7 vs someone who is his mechanical equal in many parts of the game, maybe Serral still wins, but it would take 7 games to get there.
TY is the answer you are looking for.
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Northern Ireland24264 Posts
On February 14 2024 04:51 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 03:25 WombaT wrote:On February 14 2024 03:03 JJH777 wrote:
I wish I could blame balance for Maru's loss but if I'm being honest I can't anymore. 2023 and now 2024 is the first time the "it's just Serral" crowd was actually correct. Without Serral Zerg wouldn't have done as bad as Toss but it would have been a mediocre performance for sure and Terran would have outperformed Zerg dramatically. Even if you remove Maru and Serral together. He is unbelievably good right now. I do think many of his past results including his other Kato did have significant balance issues though and reverse was true back then. If you removed Maru and Serral together it was Terran that was hurt far worse.
Looking at their series Maru's problem was the same here as it has been in most of his international losses for the last few years including to Cyan in this very event. He just gets read and predicted so easily and then tilta. Against most players he is so much better that it doesn't matter but every now and then someone like Cyan will make him look like a fool with a couple perfect builds. And against Serral he of course just can't afford to get read like this at all.
Serral seemed to know that those roach builds in games 1 and 3 would kill him on those maps at those moments. It was perfect build choices against how Maru was playing. Maru needs to be less predictable.
In their one macro game Maru actually looked like the better player imo if it was any map that was possible to split he would have won. Even without the map split he probably could have won if his control was just a bit better. 2018 Maru wins that game. It's a shame Terran is so hard on players bodies. Every Terran great has had extreme wrist/shoulder issues which has led to noticeable mechanical loss. The occasional Zerg has too but nowhere to the same extent. If Clem starts having wrist/shoulder issues in the next couple years I think it becomes definitive that there is just something about Terran that makes it impossible to play long term without breaking your body.
Game 4 was just sad. Maru was clearly tilted and ready for the series to be done. He had given up and didn't care enough to go for a respectable match score. It's sad because that's the one game he actually got a big lead in. Put him in a similar position in game 1 or 2 and he wins for sure but he had already decided he was done. It's unfortunate because a 4-1 or 4-2 would have been a far more fun series. Agreed, especially the bolded and I think I said as much myself, if not in this specific thread, then elsewhere. If Maru isn’t just straight up more skilled than an opponent, or if someone on his level hard counters him with prep, he comes unstuck quite frequently. It’s just rarely an issue because he just is straight up more skilled than most. Most of Maru’s biggest body of work come in GSL, and he’s got the benefit of his team to help him prep and work his gameplan out. When left to his own devices he’s prone to making bad calls in set planning and he can get away with it against players he can just outplay, he can’t get away with it against a Serral. This isn’t to discount his greatness, absolutely not. But it’s basically the longest pro career in the scene, and a pattern we’ve seen again, and again, and again. Enough times for it to be a pattern worth recognising. When untethered from SoS prior to doing battle, who my headcanon just assumes was GAGW’s chief planner given his skillset, it’s SoS who dismantles Maru at Blizzcon. When Maru’s got Reynor on match point after resolutely dismantling him in macro games, he picks garbage builds, and in one case even executes a garbage build game badly and gets reverse swept. After forever being basically unassailable with a TvT that while not precluding aggression, whose defining feature was resolute, superior tactical and positional play and defensive solidity, Maru picks a WC final to start donating armies against a player he’s absolutely better than. How many times does it have to happen before the conclusion is that Maru is monstrously skilled, and will stomp anyone on his day, but he’s just not clutch outside of GSL and that format? And likewise his Proleague record, as impressive as it was I do regard that as being a team effort. Maru is greater than Mvp, I think most would agree there. But does anyone think Maru could be competitive if injury impacted his mechanics to the degree he couldn’t play his favoured styles, have a micro or macro advantage and remain relevant with pure brains and set planning, as Mvp did? I’m aware Maru has had injury issues before anyone mentions! I agree with pretty much everything here about Maru. Funny you should mention Mvp. I was just thinking that even in 2024, 12 years after Mvp was relevant to the top level of competition, we have still never seen a Terran player who could plan a series as well as Mvp. If Maru was as good as Mvp at planning a Bo7 vs someone who is his mechanical equal in many parts of the game, maybe Serral still wins, but it would take 7 games to get there.
TY was also pretty damn good at it. In terms of planning sets he’s run a fair few clinics. Also I think latter-day TY just wasn’t fast enough, or a micro monster to win TvZ slugfests, but that didn’t stop him taking out the Zerg trash with some use of the grey matter. And I recall him dismantling Parting when his PvT was giving a lot of people problems.
I’ll give props to Gumiho but I don’t really think he’s a good set planner, he’s more an ‘off-meta’ player who brings weird stuff folks aren’t familiar with
But yeah since Mvp mostly Terrans have won on mechanics and latent skill. Innovation was a macro monster, with control to beat and he just steamrolled people. Byun won a Starleague and a WC on obscene micro and pretty damn good macro. Maru’s mechanics are thus that he can run you over with straight up pushes, pick you apart with multitasking, or be a defensive brick wall. And now Clem has stepped up and is in the conversation, all his notable tournament wins and results stem from him just outdoing his opponents (well, especially top Zergs) in macro slug fests.
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