After IEM Katowice 2023 delivered the most miraculous tournament run in StarCraft II history, the 2024 edition of the competition gave us the most dominant championship performance ever. Serral lifted his second Katowice trophy on the back of a truly monstrous display: 8-0 in matches, 20-1 in combined map score, and a brutal 4-0 sweep of Maru to end it all.
The only comparable runs in tournaments of similar stature were attained by Mvp in Code S January 2011 (16-1) and Nestea in Code S July 2011 (14-0), but neither event came close to the $150,000 first place prize of IEM Katowice 2024.
For a player who had entered as the prohibitive championship favorite—predicted to win by nearly 60% of TL.net poll respondents and receiving close to 3-to-1 odds to win on betting sites—Serral somehow surpassed such expectations with his display of destruction. The Finnish Phenom himself seemed to acknowledge that it was his magnum opus in his post-finals interview, remarking "I think I gave this one my everything… …this was my full performance. I don't think I can do much better."
Even though IEM Katowice lost its official "world championship" status in 2024 (that title being passed onto the Esports World Cup), its profound legacy and $500,000 prize pool surely imparted it with the prestige of a world championship. Thus, the victory gave Serral his third world championship-tier title overall—WCS/BlizzCon 2018, IEM Katowice 2022, and IEM Katowice 2024—tying him with Rogue and sOs for the most in SC2 history.
In the eyes of this writer, at least, that accomplishment is enough to push Serral from being one of the greatest, to being simply THE greatest player of all time. If we measured players solely by their auras—the reverence voiced by their peers and the fear felt by opposing fans—then Serral would have long ago locked up that title. However, I believe world championships are the truest measure of a player—after all, even if pros appreciate the respect of their peers and the adoration of the fans, ultimately it's the trophies that bring them to tears.
Thus, by now having three of StarCraft II's greatest prizes in hand, and having been the most daunting presence in the competitive scene from 2018 to 2024, I believe the title of "GOAT" is now Serral's undisputed honor.
Although Serral hardly needed any extra luck in the tournament, he began his run with a fortunate draw into Group C—considered the easiest of the RO24 groups. He summarily dispatched all five of his group opponents with a perfect 10-0 record—the same way he began his championship run at IEM Katowice 2022. Of the Group C players, SKillous came closest to handing Serral a map loss, but couldn't capitalize on a successful Dark Templar opener that caught Serral off-guard (one of the few times Serral was fooled in the entire tournament).
Luck was definitely not on Serral's side in the playoffs, as he would end up facing a thorny gauntlet of Clem, Dark, and Maru. The RO8 match against Clem may actually have been the most challenging on paper. Despite Serral winning the majority of their head-to-head matches in 2022-23, Clem seemed to have turned a corner by winning their most recent clashes at EPT Winter/Atlanta (3-1) and in the World Team League playoffs (2-0). However, Serral showed those losses were just a momentary blip, and held off the Liquid Terran's infamous mid-game infantry pressure to take late-game victories.
The RO4 match against Dark presented an entirely different type of challenge. Throughout all of Serral's periods of dominance since 2018, Zerg vs Zerg always loomed as a threat due to the innate chaos of the match-up. Serral's runs at the two previous $500k-tier tournaments had ended at the hands of a Zerg—a 0-3 loss to Solar at Gamers8, and a 2-3 defeat against SHIN at Katowice 2023. Indeed, as Dark's early-game Zergling-Baneling attack forced Serral to type out his first GG of the tournament, such moments came readily to mind. However, that turned out to be just a momentary speed bump, as Serral resumed his red-hot streak by torching Dark in the following three games. Game three on Equilibrium stood out as an example of how Serral was exquisitely prepared for the tournament, executing a fast Lair strategy from a fast gold-base start thanks to his meticulous defensive building placement.
The grand finale was a best-of-seven showdown against Maru, a player who had been Serral's top rival since 2018—at least in terms of narrative. In reality, the two icons of Legacy of the Void had rarely faced each other in high-stakes tournaments, and the victories had almost always gone to Serral—including in a 3-1 romp on his way to the IEM Katowice 2022 title.
Game one of the finals saw Serral continue his trend of beating up on the ONSYDE/Vitality Terran, as he swallowed up the expansions of Hecate and overwhelmed Maru with superior resources. The spacious map of Radhuset Station portended a similar result in game two, but Serral was forced into a much more difficult fight due to a legendary defensive effort from Maru. Despite giving up a 7 to 9 expansion split and allowing Serral to accumulate a 10,000+ resource bank advantage in the mid-game, Maru somehow clawed his way back to even footing after a 40-minute war of attrition. However, Serral was just slightly more composed at the very end, executing one final Brood Lord-Infestor tech switch to clinch the victory.
Following such a grueling bout, Serral changed the tempo of the series with a fast Roach-Ravager-Zergling attack on Hard Lead. Maru was caught off-guard by the attack while going for a greedy opener, and was forced to surrender in less than seven minutes.
Maru decided to bet his survival on mech in game four, and for a while, it seemed like the gambit might stave off defeat for one more map. His early/mid-game pressure with Cyclones kept Serral pinned back on Alcyone, giving himself the breathing room to take expansions and gain a healthy worker lead. However, as in so many matches throughout Serral's career, run-by's were the saving grace in a difficult situation. First, a group of Banelings equalized the worker count, and then, a series of Zergling raids severely hampered Maru's attempts to get a Tank-push going. What started as a push from a strong position gradually turned into a desperate all-in, which Serral had no problem putting down. With his economy devastated and Tanks overrun by Ravagers, Banelings, and Zergligs, Maru typed out the GG that gave Serral his second IEM Katowice title.
Odds and Ends: Early Upsets into an Inevitable Conclusion
Although Katowice 2024 will be remembered for Serral's dominant, almost inevitable, championship run, it actually began with a number of surprises in the RO24 group stage.
HeroMarine, who seemed to take a step back in 2023, passed Solar and GuMiho to take first place in Group A with a 5-0 record (his 10-1 map score was second best to Serral). Group B also gave us a surprise winner, with SHIN beating out Cure, Clem, and defending champion Oliveira to top the group table. While SHIN had certainly proven his quality by finishing top four at IEM Katowice 2023, his poor EPT 2023/24 season had led to a downward forecast ahead of this year's event.
As for Group D, the group of death, Reynor was the unlucky title contender to be eliminated in the RO24 (one of Maru, herO, Dark, and Reynor were guaranteed to be knocked out). However, that wasn't the biggest surprise of the group—that was Cyan taking a crazy 2-1 upset over Maru in the opening match, giving Maru an elimination scare early on (VOD).
Overall, the group stages featured solid, respectable showings from players making their debuts. trigger went 1-4, defeating the more seasoned Spirit to take fifth place in Group A—probably higher than most expectations. WTL cult hero Firefly acquitted himself well in his first ever event outside of China, going 2-3 in Group C with wins against SKillous and Kelazhur. And, even though SKillous didn't technically 'debut' in the event, he made the most of his first RO24 appearance and advanced to the RO12.
However, from the RO12 playoffs on, the results were rather straight-forward with the favorite winning in nearly every instance. Unfortunately for Protoss fans, one of the few upsets occurred in the RO12 match of herO vs Cure, with the DPG Protoss suffering a narrow 2-3 loss despite being a slight favorite according to Aligulac. Combined with other factors such as Classic and Creator being eliminated in the qualifiers, and ShoWTimE being drawn into the group of death (and some would say balance played a part as well), this resulted in the third ever IEM Katowice RO8 where one race was entirely shut out (no Protosses in IEM Katowice 2022, no Terrans in IEM Katowice 2019).
The top four players of Serral, Maru, Cure, and Dark all earned spots at the upcoming Esports World Cup (Serral's duplicate seed will rolling over to another player), the site of the new EPT World Championship for SC2. The EWC was alluded to several times over the course of the broadcast—ESL's willingness to dilute attention from an event as prestigious at Katowice leads one to suspect that EWC will deliver on its promise of "the largest prize pool StarCraft has ever seen" in a significant way.
Recommended Games
For pure entertainment value, these two, hyper-chaotic Terran vs Terran games from the group stage were the best games of the tournament.
What an incredible recap for an incredible run. Watching the games, it really made you wonder: "how could only 60% of voters think Serral would win?"
Opening up the GOAT claim is surely going to give interesting comments hahaha. Serral was a very complete player this tournament though, from prep to play to rock-paper-scissors meta, it's certainly a tournament to behold
It's hard to find a player who dominated like Serral in other esports The ones that come to my mind are Armada in Smash Melee (when he was active), Faker and obviously Flash He's basically the favorite to win almost every tournament since his Blizzcon title in 2018 The GOAT title is well deserved
Wow based writeup, also spoiling that Serral is the #1
Love the organization, with the little piece on Serral being the GOAT, a part dedicated to group stages and upsets and newly debuting players (it's quite indeed awesome that we're seeing new blood reach high, including Protosses!!), and a recommended match section that had 2 categories. Really well done and very good and useful summary.
On that note, would be curious to see Waxangel write a top 10-15 GOAT series someday, or at least see his opinion and list once Miz's is done
Thanks for the write up! Agree that Solar-Clem was the best back and forth series overall, but my fav was Maru-Reynor (that game 1 build was a strategical masterpiece)
Very nice summary Wax! And I agree wholeheartly with your assessment of Serrals State of the Game...I will not use the word we all lovehate. Just wow, what a run...
Also Stats vs Clem final game was a cool one to watch! Stats really held on for so long, impressive defense and control. Also cool use of Recalls and tactical plays.
On February 15 2024 21:08 Lambertus wrote: Very nice summary Wax! And I agree wholeheartly with your assessment of Serrals State of the Game...I will not use the word we all lovehate. Just wow, what a run...
Lovehate of that word comes from the way of common usage of it: it is taken as timeless absolute, something unchangeable once carved to a stone.
SC2 servers, all copies of game, every possible way to play the game must be EMP'd and erased out from existence before the final question of lovehate word can be assessed as really absolute, and I suspect not even then as 100% consensus.
If Maru hack'and'slash through next few international premiers including RIadh and emerges victorious from them, personally I have no big problems to change attachment of the lovehate word from Serral to him then. But I'm content and happy with current emerging consensus of that tag and to whom it is attached. It is unofficial honorary title and holder of it can change if reality itself force to make changes to placement of lovehate, based on merit and success, both always unavoidably someway recency biased.
...
I got some kind of psychosomatized PTSD-like angst symptoms after Katowice 2022 when I finally realized that tournament's recap was somehow "forgotten" for whatever reasons. It was perceived unfairness because of lack of proper publication. This article redeems a lot from that complex. So, thanks again Waxangel. :D
On February 15 2024 21:08 Lambertus wrote: Very nice summary Wax! And I agree wholeheartly with your assessment of Serrals State of the Game...I will not use the word we all lovehate. Just wow, what a run...
Lovehate of that word comes from the way of common usage of it: it is taken as timeless absolute, something unchangeable once carved to a stone.
SC2 servers, all copies of game, every possible way to play the game must be EMP'd and erased out from existence before the final question of lovehate word can be assessed as really absolute, and I suspect not even then as 100% consensus.
If Maru hack'and'slash through next few international premiers including RIadh and emerges victorious from them, personally I have no big problems to change attachment of the lovehate word from Serral to him then. But I'm content and happy with current emerging consensus of that tag and to whom it is attached. It is unofficial honorary title and holder of it can change if reality itself force to make changes to placement of lovehate, based on merit and success, both always unavoidably someway recency biased.
...
I got some kind of psychosomatized PTSD-like angst symptoms after Katowice 2022 when I finally realized that tournament's recap was somehow "forgotten" for whatever reasons. It was perceived unfairness because of lack of proper publication. This article redeems a lot from that complex. So, thanks again Waxangel. :D
Not sure if he we can 100% concensus taht Serral is the lovehate word though cus he did drop a game to herO in his last 21 games or so (MC7 and Kato), and Maru is better than herO, so Serral might lose to Maru sometime, and because Katowice doesn't give as much money anymore I'm not sure if everyone was trying hard for it, compared to GSL
Actually since this is post-kespa era, even if Serral racks up 7 WCs (cus WC = 1 GSL or slightly more), i'm not sure if he will ever be able to be above koreans like Maru
On February 15 2024 21:08 Lambertus wrote: Very nice summary Wax! And I agree wholeheartly with your assessment of Serrals State of the Game...I will not use the word we all lovehate. Just wow, what a run...
Lovehate of that word comes from the way of common usage of it: it is taken as timeless absolute, something unchangeable once carved to a stone.
SC2 servers, all copies of game, every possible way to play the game must be EMP'd and erased out from existence before the final question of lovehate word can be assessed as really absolute, and I suspect not even then as 100% consensus.
If Maru hack'and'slash through next few international premiers including RIadh and emerges victorious from them, personally I have no big problems to change attachment of the lovehate word from Serral to him then. But I'm content and happy with current emerging consensus of that tag and to whom it is attached. It is unofficial honorary title and holder of it can change if reality itself force to make changes to placement of lovehate, based on merit and success, both always unavoidably someway recency biased.
...
I got some kind of psychosomatized PTSD-like angst symptoms after Katowice 2022 when I finally realized that tournament's recap was somehow "forgotten" for whatever reasons. It was perceived unfairness because of lack of proper publication. This article redeems a lot from that complex. So, thanks again Waxangel. :D
Not sure if he we can 100% concensus taht Serral is the lovehate word though cus he did drop a game to herO in his last 21 games or so (MC7 and Kato), and Maru is better than herO, so Serral might lose to Maru sometime, and because Katowice doesn't give as much money anymore I'm not sure if everyone was trying hard for it, compared to GSL
Actually since this is post-kespa era, even if Serral racks up 7 WCs (cus WC = 1 GSL or slightly more), i'm not sure if he will ever be able to be above koreans like Maru
I can't tell if you're trolling or just on some really hard drugs...$150,000 for 1st place but no one was trying hard for it? and so because serral dropped map to hero that makes Maru better than serral now? even though serral wins almost every series they play? serral is the undisputed goat, there is no more debate.
herO vs Cure G3 - unbelievable micro to hold push being down 40 army supply and comeback Byun vs Gumiho G2 - just all around entertaining TvT Maru vs Cyan G2 - surprising upset in a late game PvT no less, Cyan played out of his mind herO vs Reynor G2 - all around entertaining high level late game PvZ
On February 15 2024 21:08 Lambertus wrote: Very nice summary Wax! And I agree wholeheartly with your assessment of Serrals State of the Game...I will not use the word we all lovehate. Just wow, what a run...
Lovehate of that word comes from the way of common usage of it: it is taken as timeless absolute, something unchangeable once carved to a stone.
SC2 servers, all copies of game, every possible way to play the game must be EMP'd and erased out from existence before the final question of lovehate word can be assessed as really absolute, and I suspect not even then as 100% consensus.
If Maru hack'and'slash through next few international premiers including RIadh and emerges victorious from them, personally I have no big problems to change attachment of the lovehate word from Serral to him then. But I'm content and happy with current emerging consensus of that tag and to whom it is attached. It is unofficial honorary title and holder of it can change if reality itself force to make changes to placement of lovehate, based on merit and success, both always unavoidably someway recency biased.
...
I got some kind of psychosomatized PTSD-like angst symptoms after Katowice 2022 when I finally realized that tournament's recap was somehow "forgotten" for whatever reasons. It was perceived unfairness because of lack of proper publication. This article redeems a lot from that complex. So, thanks again Waxangel. :D
Not sure if he we can 100% concensus taht Serral is the lovehate word though cus he did drop a game to herO in his last 21 games or so (MC7 and Kato), and Maru is better than herO, so Serral might lose to Maru sometime, and because Katowice doesn't give as much money anymore I'm not sure if everyone was trying hard for it, compared to GSL
Actually since this is post-kespa era, even if Serral racks up 7 WCs (cus WC = 1 GSL or slightly more), i'm not sure if he will ever be able to be above koreans like Maru
I can't tell if you're trolling or just on some really hard drugs...$150,000 for 1st place but no one was trying hard for it? and so because serral dropped map to hero that makes Maru better than serral now? even though serral wins almost every series they play? serral is the undisputed goat, there is no more debate.
It’s just Maru fans coping. Funny how he brings up post kespa, yet Maru won majority of his post kespa against a super weak Koreans in GSL
Serral has been stomping Maru for 4-5 years already. Serral has already lapped the field once-twice already. Everyone is just competing for 2nd
And most importantly, thank you Wax for a fantastic write up
On February 15 2024 23:06 yezzir88 wrote: Still can't claim GOAT without a single Code S title.
You can when all of your titles are coming against the same players. If Serral’s only goal was to win a Code S title in 2024, he would easily get it. All of his peers would tell you the same, and multiple Koreans have made similar comments. If you think otherwise you don’t know the game.
There is no value to him sacrificing months living there for such a small prize pool.
On February 15 2024 23:06 yezzir88 wrote: Still can't claim GOAT without a single Code S title.
As someone who agrees somewhat with this take*, would it really make a difference at this stage, considering code S can't even be filled with 16 good korean players? It wouldn't matter one bit imho. Even the argument of preparation vs weekender no longer matters to me, with the meta being so stale ansmd every game looking like the next, even in code S.
*As in, yes code S is still by far the most competitive tournament and prep > weekender
On February 15 2024 23:06 yezzir88 wrote: Still can't claim GOAT without a single Code S title.
As someone who agrees somewhat with this take*, would it really make a difference at this stage, considering code S can't even be filled with 16 good korean players? It wouldn't matter one bit imho. Even the argument of preparation vs weekender no longer matters to me, with the meta being so stale ansmd every game looking like the next, even in code S.
*As in, yes code S is still by far the most competitive tournament and prep > weekender
Odd given same genre, same company but I’m reminded of Happy in WC3. He wasn’t the man in the times where your Grubbys and Moons of the world were duking it out for things like WCG in WC3’s peak. But in latter day WC3 he very much has been, and his numbers are frankly absurd, but in a game whose heyday has past.
I think in both cases comparisons across eras are just impossible to do, so I pick the copout option and think it’s fair to crown them both BOATs (best of…), where the GOAT question remains unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable.
If you had to pick one dude to play a Bo69 against some egotistical alien overlord for the fate of the Earth, and they allow us to travel back in time to grab folks in their prime in the interests of fairness. A year for hardcore prep time, who you picking?
I’m probably going Serral/Happy for their respective games.
And yeah 100% agreed, the player pool dropping sucked, but the worst aspect of recent GSL changes is combining the Ro4/finals day. It really erodes that prep aspect which is the USP of GSL.
On February 15 2024 23:06 yezzir88 wrote: Still can't claim GOAT without a single Code S title.
As someone who agrees somewhat with this take*, would it really make a difference at this stage, considering code S can't even be filled with 16 good korean players? It wouldn't matter one bit imho. Even the argument of preparation vs weekender no longer matters to me, with the meta being so stale ansmd every game looking like the next, even in code S.
*As in, yes code S is still by far the most competitive tournament and prep > weekender
Odd given same genre, same company but I’m reminded of Happy in WC3. He wasn’t the man in the times where your Grubbys and Moons of the world were duking it out for things like WCG in WC3’s peak. But in latter day WC3 he very much has been, and his numbers are frankly absurd, but in a game whose heyday has past.
I think in both cases comparisons across eras are just impossible to do, so I pick the copout option and think it’s fair to crown them both BOATs (best of…), where the GOAT question remains unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable.
If you had to pick one dude to play a Bo69 against some egotistical alien overlord for the fate of the Earth, and they allow us to travel back in time to grab folks in their prime in the interests of fairness. A year for hardcore prep time, who you picking?
I’m probably going Serral/Happy for their respective games.
And yeah 100% agreed, the player pool dropping sucked, but the worst aspect of recent GSL changes is combining the Ro4/finals day. It really erodes that prep aspect which is the USP of GSL.
Oh yeah great point, I forgot about the combined ro4 and finals.
Listen, if you want to believe Maru is the GOAT, it can still be a reasonable take. He's an utterly amazing player and has been for a very, very long time. I've been dreaming of Maru and Serral meeting in an offline tournament since 2018 (at a Katowice, no less!) so the result swayed me. Serral delivered a victory that displayed his brilliance to the highest degree--as he said, this was his full performance. He's still a mechanical monster with singular scouting, control and multi-tasking. But his ability now to plan out a series and execute tailored builds makes him truly terrifying. The old Serral lacked that versatility and would've let Dark or Maru dictate the games while trying to out-macro them every time.
On GSL--I used to hold this against him quite a bit as well. However, he's been remarkably consistent about his stance, in that it doesn't make sense for him personally or professionally or financially. Very rarely in life do people that are singularly great at anything (sports, music, business, etc.) do things they don't want to do, simply for the sake of others. And based on his results, I can't really say he's wrong.
On February 15 2024 22:19 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: and because Katowice doesn't give as much money anymore I'm not sure if everyone was trying hard for it, compared to GSL
Yes, Koreans aren't interested in the IEM Katowice $150,000 first place money and are saving builds for the $3,755 GSL win. Makes total sense now!
I think we should do a study on the IQ of the average Serral fan vs people that are more skeptical, because the amount of people that got baited by Yoshi has me flabbergasted.
Anyone who continues to make excuses for the Koreans, mostly maru, are lying to themselves...when talking about the goat there are no excuses. If you show up ready to play You either get it done or you don't. Period. Some say maru didn't have a chance to prepare...oh for the tournament with $500k that he knew about for months? Lol stop with the excuses. Serrals the goat.
On February 16 2024 01:26 Durnuu wrote: I think we should do a study on the IQ of the average Serral fan vs people that are more skeptical, because the amount of people that got baited by Yoshi has me flabbergasted.
People are so thirsty to discredit and disrespect the man (forgive me, aren't there three separate forum topics attempting to do so?) that I chalk it up to reaping what you sow.
Thus, by now having three of StarCraft II's greatest prizes in hand, and having been the most daunting presence in the competitive scene from 2018 to 2024, I believe the title of "GOAT" is now Serral's undisputed honor.
Serral is undeniably GOAT 2018-2024 just by pure consistency winning at least 2 "competitive" Premier tournaments (aka beating at least two Koreans in tournament, offline if possible) per year for 6 years. Here's the data:
2018: GSL vs World > Innovation, Dark, Stats Blizzcon > sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, Stats HomeStory Cup > soO, Trap, Bunny x 2, Taeja, Innovation
2019: GSL vs World > TY, Trap, Classic HomeStory Cup > soO, Trap, Zest, Innovation
2020 (online only due to COVID): Dreamhack Summer > Innovation, TY, Cure, Trap Dreamhack Winter > Trap, Stats
2021 (online only due to COVID): Dreamhack Fall > Zoun, Trap x 2, Bunny NeXT Masters > Classic, Zest
2024 so far: Master's Coliseum (online) > Solar x 2, Maru, Cure, herO IEM Katowice > ByuN, Dark, Maru
This is not including all the times Serral beat world-class foreigners like Reynor and Clem especially in the ESL Europe or region-locked Dreamhacks in 2018-2019.
Another way to put it: Serral participated in 61 Premier tournaments from 2018 till now (~10 tournaments a year), and has only not made top 8 three times. He has 25 gold, 11 silver, 10 semifinal, and 12 quarterfinal finishes, so the chance of Serral winning a Premier tournament since 2018 on average is 41%, 59% to make it to the grand final, 75% to reach at least top 4, 95% to reach at least top 8.
This is basically saying for at least 6 years now, when Serral enters a Premier tournament: - he's almost guaranteed to reach top 8 - once top 8, his chance to advance to top 4 is more than 3 in 4 - once top 4, his chance to advance to the grand final is about 4 in 5 - and once he's in the grand final, his chance to win it all is more than 2 in 3.
Lastly, according to Aligulac, Serral's win rate against Koreans since 2018 is 69% in games and 79% in matches. If you narrow it down to just offline Bo3+, it's 68% in games and 78% in matches.
On February 16 2024 01:26 Durnuu wrote: I think we should do a study on the IQ of the average Serral fan vs people that are more skeptical, because the amount of people that got baited by Yoshi has me flabbergasted.
To be fair, for the longest time it was impossible to tell if the korean fans were trolling.
It's been 6 years and the cope is still going strong.
Btw no one from 2018 till now has a winning record against Serral, including any one on the GOAT list, Reynor, Clem, or any other top Koreans (Edit: technically DRG has a winning match record 4-3 but losing game record 8-11). In fact, no one had a more than 40% Bo3+ match win rate against Serral except Hurricane (only one match played), DRG, and Rogue, who has an exactly 50% Bo3+ match win rate against Serral, but all of those wins were online and Rogue has never won against Serral offline in a Bo3+. On the other hand, the only person who has winning record against Serral offline Bo3+ (outside of only facing off one time offline like DRG and Hurricane) is Solar at 2-1, but they've only faced off 3 times.
There are also those much harder to evaluate intangibles. How to measure Serral's impact to the SC2 scene generally and to the rise of Euro scene particularly? In both cases Serral's touch have some real revigorating influence. The decline of the scene would've likely started an year or two earlier. The CPR was successfully conducted by The Finnisher.
Also, of all Top Players, It was Serral who was picked to play against AI.
On February 16 2024 01:26 Durnuu wrote: I think we should do a study on the IQ of the average Serral fan vs people that are more skeptical, because the amount of people that got baited by Yoshi has me flabbergasted.
People are so thirsty to discredit and disrespect the man (forgive me, aren't there three separate forum topics attempting to do so?) that I chalk it up to reaping what you sow.
On February 16 2024 01:26 Durnuu wrote: I think we should do a study on the IQ of the average Serral fan vs people that are more skeptical, because the amount of people that got baited by Yoshi has me flabbergasted.
To be fair, for the longest time it was impossible to tell if the korean fans were trolling.
It's been 6 years and the cope is still going strong.
Tbf, the GSL is a really hard tournament cus it gives so much prep time. You really want to save your best builds for GSL if you want to win that ~$4k (actually it's quite big cus with patreon it's like $8k!!). If Serral qualified, all KRs would prepare so hard for him, he will have a really hard time trying to win
As someone who thinks Serral is probably the GOAT now, it still surprises me that it seems like the entire community has reached that consensus as well after IEM Katowice. Mostly because Maru still made a consecutive world finals (!!!) and in doing so smashed pretty much everyone but Serral. And a lot of the same arguments against Serral (playing in diminished competitive scene to at least some extent) are obviously at their most potent in 2024.
I suppose its because of just how dominant he was and the fact he 4-0'd his GOAT rival in the finals. The narrative that comes from that is just so strong.
Frankly it's undisputable that Serral is the greatest player of StarCraft 2 we have ever seen.
Personally for me the most significant will always be Mvp. Without him I never would have fallen in love with this game or spent so much time and money supporting it and the organisations involved in it. His place in the pantheon of SC2 greats will never be eroded.
But the way Serral has entirely defined international competition over the last six+ years goes beyond anything else this game, or almost any other game or sport, has seen. The comparisons to Magnus Carlsen are apt, and not just because they're both from Scandinavia!
On February 16 2024 05:26 Pandain wrote: As someone who thinks Serral is probably the GOAT now, it still surprises me that it seems like the entire community has reached that consensus as well after IEM Katowice. Mostly because Maru still made a consecutive world finals (!!!) and in doing so smashed pretty much everyone but Serral. And a lot of the same arguments against Serral (playing in diminished competitive scene to at least some extent) are obviously at their most potent in 2024.
I suppose its because of just how dominant he was and the fact he 4-0'd his GOAT rival in the finals. The narrative that comes from that is just so strong.
Aside from his dominance in this tournament the biggest thing for me is the fact that even if you remove Serral and Maru from the scene this Kato probably ends in a TvT finals. In a Maru-less world Dark could upset that but I don't give him a high percent win chance vs Clem and he's only 50-50 vs Byun and Cure as well. If Solar beat Clem and Reynor was in the top 4 as well I don't think this event would have made Serral the goat because he would still have the balance asterisk most of his other wins have. For the first time since like early 2017 it seems Zerg might actually not be the strongest race and yet Serral looks more dominant than ever.
Still hope Maru takes back the crown at the world cup though.
On February 15 2024 18:22 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: Even though IEM Katowice lost its official "world championship" status in 2024 (that title being passed onto the Esports World Cup), its profound legacy and $500,000 prize pool surely imparted it with the prestige of a world championship. Thus, the victory gave Serral his third world championship-tier title overall—
Well, no. That's not really how that works. If it isn't the World Championship, it isn't the World Championship. You don't get to arbitrarily call it "World Championship tier", it either is or it isn't. This was just another premier.
On February 15 2024 18:22 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: Even though IEM Katowice lost its official "world championship" status in 2024 (that title being passed onto the Esports World Cup), its profound legacy and $500,000 prize pool surely imparted it with the prestige of a world championship. Thus, the victory gave Serral his third world championship-tier title overall—
Well, no. That's not really how that works. If it isn't the World Championship, it isn't the World Championship. You don't get to arbitrarily call it "World Championship tier", it either is or it isn't. This was just another premier.
BlizzCon was the official WC before but IEM Katowice was a WC as well. Not that it matters much either way
On February 15 2024 18:22 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: Even though IEM Katowice lost its official "world championship" status in 2024 (that title being passed onto the Esports World Cup), its profound legacy and $500,000 prize pool surely imparted it with the prestige of a world championship. Thus, the victory gave Serral his third world championship-tier title overall—
Well, no. That's not really how that works. If it isn't the World Championship, it isn't the World Championship. You don't get to arbitrarily call it "World Championship tier", it either is or it isn't. This was just another premier.
BlizzCon was the official WC before but IEM Katowice was a WC as well. Not that it matters much either way
I just never ever considered Katowice to be a World Championship while Blizzcon was going on and laughed it off whenever people tried to claim it was.
On February 15 2024 18:22 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: Even though IEM Katowice lost its official "world championship" status in 2024 (that title being passed onto the Esports World Cup), its profound legacy and $500,000 prize pool surely imparted it with the prestige of a world championship. Thus, the victory gave Serral his third world championship-tier title overall—
Well, no. That's not really how that works. If it isn't the World Championship, it isn't the World Championship. You don't get to arbitrarily call it "World Championship tier", it either is or it isn't. This was just another premier.
It isn't the world championship but it's as prestigious as a world championship. Every top player (except Maxpax) wanted to play Katowice, almost all qualified, and there was a prize pool commensurate with a world championship.
I agree that there can only be one world champion at a time and that Oliveira is still world champ, but IEM Katowice is worth just as much as a world championship (and was worth as much as a Blizzcon when Blizzcon was world championship.)
On February 15 2024 18:22 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: Even though IEM Katowice lost its official "world championship" status in 2024 (that title being passed onto the Esports World Cup), its profound legacy and $500,000 prize pool surely imparted it with the prestige of a world championship. Thus, the victory gave Serral his third world championship-tier title overall—
Well, no. That's not really how that works. If it isn't the World Championship, it isn't the World Championship. You don't get to arbitrarily call it "World Championship tier", it either is or it isn't. This was just another premier.
Thank god we didn’t make you in charge of whether it works like that or not
On February 15 2024 18:22 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: Even though IEM Katowice lost its official "world championship" status in 2024 (that title being passed onto the Esports World Cup), its profound legacy and $500,000 prize pool surely imparted it with the prestige of a world championship. Thus, the victory gave Serral his third world championship-tier title overall—
Well, no. That's not really how that works. If it isn't the World Championship, it isn't the World Championship. You don't get to arbitrarily call it "World Championship tier", it either is or it isn't. This was just another premier.
It isn't the world championship but it's as prestigious as a world championship. Every top player (except Maxpax) wanted to play Katowice, almost all qualified, and there was a prize pool commensurate with a world championship.
I agree that there can only be one world champion at a time and that Oliveira is still world champ, but IEM Katowice is worth just as much as a world championship (and was worth as much as a Blizzcon when Blizzcon was world championship.)
Olivera is still the world champ? What? That makes absolutely no sense.
You do realise there can be more than one world championship tournament per year, right?
In a future we may don't have anything World Championship worthy at all, even if tournament's relative prestige would increase within a season (higher proportion to absolute best participate, insane prize pools, quadruple elimination bracket after double all vs all round robin). Such scenario would need SC2 to become some kind of fetish for some super rich dude, and much lower amount of active players, tho.
Multiple WCs per year is indeed possible, GSL code S was once handled as such and held high in terms of prestige.
On February 16 2024 10:16 UnLarva wrote: In a future we may don't have anything World Championship worthy at all, even if tournament's relative prestige would increase within a season (higher proportion to absolute best participate, insane prize pools, quadruple elimination bracket after double all vs all round robin). Such scenario would need SC2 to become some kind of fetish for some super rich dude, and much lower amount of active players, tho.
Multiple WCs per year is indeed possible, GSL code S was once handled as such and held high in terms of prestige.
It just feels a bit odd, like we don't have a word for these kind of tournaments. IEM being a "World Championship" (or Global Championship) is basically just a relict from the start, when IEM was an actual circuit with finals at the end. I think they don't even call it IEM World Championship anymore? It is "just" IEM Katowice. Clearly though, there is a difference between Katowice and lets say ESL Winter. So calling Katowice "just another Premier" doesn't sound particular correct either.
In the end, it comes down to preference. For me, THE World Championship is the Circuit-Finisher (be it BlizzCon, Katowice or soon the EWC). Katowice, Gamers8, WESG and what not are...uff, idk. Grand Slam Tournaments? Majors? Pseudo-WCs? Doesn't exactly roll of the tongue, does it?
On February 16 2024 10:16 UnLarva wrote: In a future we may don't have anything World Championship worthy at all, even if tournament's relative prestige would increase within a season (higher proportion to absolute best participate, insane prize pools, quadruple elimination bracket after double all vs all round robin). Such scenario would need SC2 to become some kind of fetish for some super rich dude, and much lower amount of active players, tho.
Multiple WCs per year is indeed possible, GSL code S was once handled as such and held high in terms of prestige.
It just feels a bit odd, like we don't have a word for these kind of tournaments. IEM being a "World Championship" (or Global Championship) is basically just a relict from the start, when IEM was an actual circuit with finals at the end. I think they don't even call it IEM World Championship anymore? It is "just" IEM Katowice. Clearly though, there is a difference between Katowice and lets say ESL Winter. So calling Katowice "just another Premier" doesn't sound particular correct either.
In the end, it comes down to preference. For me, THE World Championship is the Circuit-Finisher (be it BlizzCon, Katowice or soon the EWC). Katowice, Gamers8, WESG and what not are...uff, idk. Grand Slam Tournaments? Majors? Pseudo-WCs? Doesn't exactly roll of the tongue, does it?
Yep. Biggest problem to me is that the status of the WC was removed in a middle of season rather illegitimately.
Like a shopping pay-to-win WC-skin microtransaction of probably multiple millions. Of course you cannot buy prestige of IEM Katowise that way unless you really buy it. But in that case you cannot just drop in a middle of Arabian desert and still call it Katowise. But even then it is hard to imagine why that hyper rich SC2 fetishistic Saudi-Prince couldn't just rename some site as "Katowice"...
Just writing in hopes there really would happen some kind of flip in Elon Musk's head. Rate of his spending is such high that expenses of few extra decades of high level SC2 would just disappear to a balance sheets.
On February 16 2024 10:16 UnLarva wrote: In a future we may don't have anything World Championship worthy at all, even if tournament's relative prestige would increase within a season (higher proportion to absolute best participate, insane prize pools, quadruple elimination bracket after double all vs all round robin). Such scenario would need SC2 to become some kind of fetish for some super rich dude, and much lower amount of active players, tho.
Multiple WCs per year is indeed possible, GSL code S was once handled as such and held high in terms of prestige.
It just feels a bit odd, like we don't have a word for these kind of tournaments. IEM being a "World Championship" (or Global Championship) is basically just a relict from the start, when IEM was an actual circuit with finals at the end. I think they don't even call it IEM World Championship anymore? It is "just" IEM Katowice. Clearly though, there is a difference between Katowice and lets say ESL Winter. So calling Katowice "just another Premier" doesn't sound particular correct either.
In the end, it comes down to preference. For me, THE World Championship is the Circuit-Finisher (be it BlizzCon, Katowice or soon the EWC). Katowice, Gamers8, WESG and what not are...uff, idk. Grand Slam Tournaments? Majors? Pseudo-WCs? Doesn't exactly roll of the tongue, does it?
Nomenclature aside they’re on a tier above. Grand slam works as per tennis naming convention. Major, used in golf and snooker would work if major wasn’t already a designation below premiere. For some reason, they didn’t go with this precedent.
Snooker has a ‘triple crown’ thing where the Masters, UK Championship and World Championship are on a tier above, and GOAT candidates are very much judged on how many of those they have.
Which I think dovetails super well to SC2. It’s (historically) Blizzcon, Katowice and GSL, and just swap Gamers 8 for Katowice. Hell, the Masters is a top 16 ranked invitational and the Worlds are (within reason) open qualification, there’s almost a perfect map to historic SC2 structure.
For some fucking reason someone decided that a Triple Crown in SC2 was winning tournaments in different continents of vastly different levels of competion so we can’t appropriate it.
And I do yearn for more snooker/Starcraft synthesis but alas today is not that day.
Legendary run, overtakes Rogue for me as the true GOAT. A bit sad to not see the finals live up to the hype, and in general not a ton of super memorable series in the tourney overall, but impressive to watch as an incredible display of pure gamer skill and talent.
On February 16 2024 01:26 Durnuu wrote: I think we should do a study on the IQ of the average Serral fan vs people that are more skeptical, because the amount of people that got baited by Yoshi has me flabbergasted.
Really, the worst thing about Serral is the most toxic and most irrational portion of his fandom—don't worry, I don't mean you (or do I ?)
On February 16 2024 01:26 Durnuu wrote: I think we should do a study on the IQ of the average Serral fan vs people that are more skeptical, because the amount of people that got baited by Yoshi has me flabbergasted.
Really, the worst thing about Serral is the most toxic and most irrational portion of his fandom—don't worry, I don't mean you (or do I ?)
Usually when you have to go into personal attacks instead of trying to focus on the topic itself, you are already lost. Also, isnt it kinda funny that Serral fans havent been bashing on Koreans on different topics or make baseless claims about balance issues or "he doesnt care this tournament"- excuses every time he loses ? They/We have been mostly defending against this kind of stuff for 6 years now. And still it doesnt seem to end. (this is not for you Wax, of course )
The problem is, some Korean Elitists are of course using sarcasm when stating something, but others are dead serious when they write supid stuff like Code S > Katowice
On February 15 2024 23:06 yezzir88 wrote: Still can't claim GOAT without a single Code S title.
Thus, by now having three of StarCraft II's greatest prizes in hand, and having been the most daunting presence in the competitive scene from 2018 to 2024, I believe the title of "GOAT" is now Serral's undisputed honor.
Serral is undeniably GOAT 2018-2024 just by pure consistency winning at least 2 "competitive" Premier tournaments (aka beating at least two Koreans in tournament, offline if possible) per year for 6 years. Here's the data:
2018: GSL vs World > Innovation, Dark, Stats Blizzcon > sOs, Zest, Dark, Rogue, Stats HomeStory Cup > soO, Trap, Bunny x 2, Taeja, Innovation
2019: GSL vs World > TY, Trap, Classic HomeStory Cup > soO, Trap, Zest, Innovation
2020 (online only due to COVID): Dreamhack Summer > Innovation, TY, Cure, Trap Dreamhack Winter > Trap, Stats
2021 (online only due to COVID): Dreamhack Fall > Zoun, Trap x 2, Bunny NeXT Masters > Classic, Zest
2024 so far: Master's Coliseum (online) > Solar x 2, Maru, Cure, herO IEM Katowice > ByuN, Dark, Maru
This is not including all the times Serral beat world-class foreigners like Reynor and Clem especially in the ESL Europe or region-locked Dreamhacks in 2018-2019.
Another way to put it: Serral participated in 61 Premier tournaments from 2018 till now (~10 tournaments a year), and has only not made top 8 three times. He has 25 gold, 11 silver, 10 semifinal, and 12 quarterfinal finishes, so the chance of Serral winning a Premier tournament since 2018 on average is 41%, 59% to make it to the grand final, 75% to reach at least top 4, 95% to reach at least top 8.
This is basically saying for at least 6 years now, when Serral enters a Premier tournament: - he's almost guaranteed to reach top 8 - once top 8, his chance to advance to top 4 is more than 3 in 4 - once top 4, his chance to advance to the grand final is about 4 in 5 - and once he's in the grand final, his chance to win it all is more than 2 in 3.
Lastly, according to Aligulac, Serral's win rate against Koreans since 2018 is 69% in games and 79% in matches. If you narrow it down to just offline Bo3+, it's 68% in games and 78% in matches.
This is an awesome write-up. What makes him so silly strong, is that you never have to worry, you just know that he will deliver. Never did I believe Maru had a chance, I didn't even buy into the narrative of the battle of the GOATs. Serral just wins and it was the same in Kr vs. The World and the Blizzcon when the competitiveness was even stronger.
As for the removal of the World Championsship title that is so stupid. It was called IEM WCS before Blizzcon became it, it was the end of the IEM tournament year, just like DH: Winter is the end of DH, and Anaheim was the finals of the MLG series.
On February 15 2024 23:06 yezzir88 wrote: Still can't claim GOAT without a single Code S title.
User was temp banned for this post.
This ban is stupid, banned for having a wrong opinion?, could we debate instead?, or is this not the site for that?
That the ban is temporary and in this thread is the surprising thing, i even reported the guy in the IEM thread because he was just balancing whining and basically shitting on Serra's achievement.
Also this is the 8th non-Korean Premier tournament in a row that was won by a foreigner since November 2022 when herO won Dreamhack Atlanta. Koreans were stopped 4x by Serral, 2x by Reynor, and 1x by Clem and Oliveira. That was also the last time a Protoss has won a Premier. The streaks continue. What's more likely to happen first, Protoss wins a Premier, or a Korean wins a global Premier? I'll take bets :D
Serral is the goat and its not even a debate. For many years, he has proven it and still doing so. But please, those who compare him to Magnus Carlsen are completely out of their mind. The longevity, the gap between him and his closest rivals are more importantly, the fact that SC 2 is almost dead while chess is more alive than ever, with many youngsters trying to push him should be more than enough to convince you.
On February 17 2024 13:14 TornadoSteve wrote: Serral is the goat and its not even a debate. For many years, he has proven it and still doing so. But please, those who compare him to Magnus Carlsen are completely out of their mind. The longevity, the gap between him and his closest rivals are more importantly, the fact that SC 2 is almost dead while chess is more alive than ever, with many youngsters trying to push him should be more than enough to convince you.
Similarities in a sociological aspects of how his peers and chess commentators, fans and writers talk about Magnus, comment and handle with him and how Serral's opponents and SC2 commentators talk about Serral is striking and immediately evident. Regardless of differences in overall levels of competition between the games, there are nothing "completely out of mind" in the assumption that Serral may enjoy from some kind 'Magnus Carlsen - effect' within SC2 scene relative to his peers.
Already totally lost the count of how many times that is directly said or at least implied by mouths of his top level competition during various interviews over years. We can call it Serral -effect in SC2 context so nobody needs to get triggered by false straw man comparisons.
Otherwise comparisons are hardly fitting, tho not necessarily in all aspects "completely out of mind".
On February 17 2024 13:14 TornadoSteve wrote: Serral is the goat and its not even a debate. For many years, he has proven it and still doing so. But please, those who compare him to Magnus Carlsen are completely out of their mind. The longevity, the gap between him and his closest rivals are more importantly, the fact that SC 2 is almost dead while chess is more alive than ever, with many youngsters trying to push him should be more than enough to convince you.
Similarities in a sociological aspects of how his peers and chess commentators, fans and writers talk about Magnus, comment and handle with him and how Serral's opponents and SC2 commentators talk about Serral is striking and immediately evident. Regardless of differences in overall levels of competition between the games, there are nothing "completely out of mind" in the assumption that Serral may enjoy from some kind 'Magnus Carlsen - effect' within SC2 scene relative to his peers.
Already totally lost the count of how many times that is directly said or at least implied by mouths of his top level competition during various interviews over years. We can call it Serral -effect in SC2 context so nobody needs to get triggered by false straw man comparisons.
Otherwise comparisons are hardly fitting, tho not necessarily in all aspects "completely out of mind".
It’s not really mentioned enough as a plus point in the Serral column, but basically all pros I’ve ever heard asked, foreign or Korean have Serral as the man to beat. Not feared perhaps, at least for some, but definitely the toughest opponent going.
I mean these are his peers that are training with him, or they have to devise means to beat him if they’re drawn against him, they have to have some insight that counts for something.
I mean it was just a bit of fun to make some content for breaks, but the player cards Katowice had made kind of put it into perspective. 99s in multiple categories, and a decent gap in terms of average rating to even monsters like Reynor.
And the top pros will notice the little things, small optimisations or minor but impactful things that even regular GM level players won’t pick up on, never mind the rest of us plebs.
On February 17 2024 13:14 TornadoSteve wrote: Serral is the goat and its not even a debate. For many years, he has proven it and still doing so. But please, those who compare him to Magnus Carlsen are completely out of their mind. The longevity, the gap between him and his closest rivals are more importantly, the fact that SC 2 is almost dead while chess is more alive than ever, with many youngsters trying to push him should be more than enough to convince you.
Similarities in a sociological aspects of how his peers and chess commentators, fans and writers talk about Magnus, comment and handle with him and how Serral's opponents and SC2 commentators talk about Serral is striking and immediately evident. Regardless of differences in overall levels of competition between the games, there are nothing "completely out of mind" in the assumption that Serral may enjoy from some kind 'Magnus Carlsen - effect' within SC2 scene relative to his peers.
Already totally lost the count of how many times that is directly said or at least implied by mouths of his top level competition during various interviews over years. We can call it Serral -effect in SC2 context so nobody needs to get triggered by false straw man comparisons.
Otherwise comparisons are hardly fitting, tho not necessarily in all aspects "completely out of mind".
It’s not really mentioned enough as a plus point in the Serral column, but basically all pros I’ve ever heard asked, foreign or Korean have Serral as the man to beat. Not feared perhaps, at least for some, but definitely the toughest opponent going.
I mean these are his peers that are training with him, or they have to devise means to beat him if they’re drawn against him, they have to have some insight that counts for something.
I mean it was just a bit of fun to make some content for breaks, but the player cards Katowice had made kind of put it into perspective. 99s in multiple categories, and a decent gap in terms of average rating to even monsters like Reynor.
And the top pros will notice the little things, small optimisations or minor but impactful things that even regular GM level players won’t pick up on, never mind the rest of us plebs.
I asked soO during WCS Austin in 2017 (an event in which Nerchio made the finals) who the best Zerg in the event was. soO said it was Serral without hesitation (despite the fact that Serral was eliminated in the Ro8).
On February 17 2024 13:14 TornadoSteve wrote: Serral is the goat and its not even a debate. For many years, he has proven it and still doing so. But please, those who compare him to Magnus Carlsen are completely out of their mind. The longevity, the gap between him and his closest rivals are more importantly, the fact that SC 2 is almost dead while chess is more alive than ever, with many youngsters trying to push him should be more than enough to convince you.
Similarities in a sociological aspects of how his peers and chess commentators, fans and writers talk about Magnus, comment and handle with him and how Serral's opponents and SC2 commentators talk about Serral is striking and immediately evident. Regardless of differences in overall levels of competition between the games, there are nothing "completely out of mind" in the assumption that Serral may enjoy from some kind 'Magnus Carlsen - effect' within SC2 scene relative to his peers.
Already totally lost the count of how many times that is directly said or at least implied by mouths of his top level competition during various interviews over years. We can call it Serral -effect in SC2 context so nobody needs to get triggered by false straw man comparisons.
Otherwise comparisons are hardly fitting, tho not necessarily in all aspects "completely out of mind".
It’s not really mentioned enough as a plus point in the Serral column, but basically all pros I’ve ever heard asked, foreign or Korean have Serral as the man to beat. Not feared perhaps, at least for some, but definitely the toughest opponent going.
I mean these are his peers that are training with him, or they have to devise means to beat him if they’re drawn against him, they have to have some insight that counts for something.
I mean it was just a bit of fun to make some content for breaks, but the player cards Katowice had made kind of put it into perspective. 99s in multiple categories, and a decent gap in terms of average rating to even monsters like Reynor.
And the top pros will notice the little things, small optimisations or minor but impactful things that even regular GM level players won’t pick up on, never mind the rest of us plebs.
I asked soO during WCS Austin in 2017 (an event in which Nerchio made the finals) who the best Zerg in the event was. soO said it was Serral without hesitation (despite the fact that Serral was eliminated in the Ro8).
Serral showed his strength super early in LotV during that famous nation wars game where INno lost countless scvs to his 1 ling
On February 17 2024 13:14 TornadoSteve wrote: Serral is the goat and its not even a debate. For many years, he has proven it and still doing so. But please, those who compare him to Magnus Carlsen are completely out of their mind. The longevity, the gap between him and his closest rivals are more importantly, the fact that SC 2 is almost dead while chess is more alive than ever, with many youngsters trying to push him should be more than enough to convince you.
Similarities in a sociological aspects of how his peers and chess commentators, fans and writers talk about Magnus, comment and handle with him and how Serral's opponents and SC2 commentators talk about Serral is striking and immediately evident. Regardless of differences in overall levels of competition between the games, there are nothing "completely out of mind" in the assumption that Serral may enjoy from some kind 'Magnus Carlsen - effect' within SC2 scene relative to his peers.
Already totally lost the count of how many times that is directly said or at least implied by mouths of his top level competition during various interviews over years. We can call it Serral -effect in SC2 context so nobody needs to get triggered by false straw man comparisons.
Otherwise comparisons are hardly fitting, tho not necessarily in all aspects "completely out of mind".
It’s not really mentioned enough as a plus point in the Serral column, but basically all pros I’ve ever heard asked, foreign or Korean have Serral as the man to beat. Not feared perhaps, at least for some, but definitely the toughest opponent going.
I mean these are his peers that are training with him, or they have to devise means to beat him if they’re drawn against him, they have to have some insight that counts for something.
I mean it was just a bit of fun to make some content for breaks, but the player cards Katowice had made kind of put it into perspective. 99s in multiple categories, and a decent gap in terms of average rating to even monsters like Reynor.
And the top pros will notice the little things, small optimisations or minor but impactful things that even regular GM level players won’t pick up on, never mind the rest of us plebs.
I asked soO during WCS Austin in 2017 (an event in which Nerchio made the finals) who the best Zerg in the event was. soO said it was Serral without hesitation (despite the fact that Serral was eliminated in the Ro8).
Man from the odd tidbit here and there I’ve seen in your posts, a ‘What soO told Mizenhauer over the years’ would be a fascinating blog posts. And luckily you don’t have any kind of big, controversial series that you’re currently working on!
Pros definitely know way ahead of the curve who the most latently skillful players are when they’re coming up for sure. Whether they can convert that to ruthless tournament success a la Serral isn’t always guaranteed, but game recognises game as they say
On February 17 2024 13:14 TornadoSteve wrote: Serral is the goat and its not even a debate. For many years, he has proven it and still doing so. But please, those who compare him to Magnus Carlsen are completely out of their mind. The longevity, the gap between him and his closest rivals are more importantly, the fact that SC 2 is almost dead while chess is more alive than ever, with many youngsters trying to push him should be more than enough to convince you.
Similarities in a sociological aspects of how his peers and chess commentators, fans and writers talk about Magnus, comment and handle with him and how Serral's opponents and SC2 commentators talk about Serral is striking and immediately evident. Regardless of differences in overall levels of competition between the games, there are nothing "completely out of mind" in the assumption that Serral may enjoy from some kind 'Magnus Carlsen - effect' within SC2 scene relative to his peers.
Already totally lost the count of how many times that is directly said or at least implied by mouths of his top level competition during various interviews over years. We can call it Serral -effect in SC2 context so nobody needs to get triggered by false straw man comparisons.
Otherwise comparisons are hardly fitting, tho not necessarily in all aspects "completely out of mind".
It’s not really mentioned enough as a plus point in the Serral column, but basically all pros I’ve ever heard asked, foreign or Korean have Serral as the man to beat. Not feared perhaps, at least for some, but definitely the toughest opponent going.
I mean these are his peers that are training with him, or they have to devise means to beat him if they’re drawn against him, they have to have some insight that counts for something.
I mean it was just a bit of fun to make some content for breaks, but the player cards Katowice had made kind of put it into perspective. 99s in multiple categories, and a decent gap in terms of average rating to even monsters like Reynor.
And the top pros will notice the little things, small optimisations or minor but impactful things that even regular GM level players won’t pick up on, never mind the rest of us plebs.
To clarify the meaning of 'Magnus Carlsen effect' and why I think it's applicable to Serral I just wrote question to Edge's copilot AI:
How to Define Magnus-effect in the Chess game?
Copilot:
"The “Magnus Effect” in chess is a term that is often used to describe the unique playing style and achievements of Magnus Carlsen, a world-renowned chess player. Here’s a more detailed definition:
Creating Opportunities: Magnus Carlsen has a remarkable ability to create winning opportunities from positions that appear balanced or even slightly disadvantageous. This ability to turn seemingly innocuous situations into advantageous ones is a key aspect of the “Magnus Effect”.
Consistent Performance: The term “Magnus Effect” also encapsulates Carlsen’s consistent performance in high-stakes matches. His ability to maintain a steady trajectory towards victory, even under pressure, is a defining characteristic of his playstyle.
Strategic Depth and Tactical Acuity: The “Magnus Effect” is a reflection of Carlsen’s deep understanding of the game’s strategies and his sharp tactical acuity. His moves often reveal a profound strategic depth and a keen sense for tactics.
Tenacious Fighting Spirit: Carlsen is known for his tenacious fighting spirit. He often grinds out wins from drawn positions, demonstrating a never-give-up attitude. This tenacity is another element of the “Magnus Effect”.
In essence, the “Magnus Effect” in chess is a testament to Magnus Carlsen’s mastery of the game and his ability to subtly improve his position. It’s a reflection of his strategic depth, tactical acuity, and tenacious fighting spirit. It’s important to note that this term is not an official chess term, but rather a colloquialism used to describe Carlsen’s impact on the game."
Replace the name and the name of game and you get rather good description of Serral, and 'Serral Effect'. :D
Excellent write-up as usual. This IEM Katowice 2024 title run definitely solidifies Serral as the No. 1 greatest of all time in SC2 history. Truly remarkable performance, as well as consistency and longevity in his career, especially from 2018 to present.
On February 17 2024 13:14 TornadoSteve wrote: Serral is the goat and its not even a debate. For many years, he has proven it and still doing so. But please, those who compare him to Magnus Carlsen are completely out of their mind. The longevity, the gap between him and his closest rivals are more importantly, the fact that SC 2 is almost dead while chess is more alive than ever, with many youngsters trying to push him should be more than enough to convince you.
Similarities in a sociological aspects of how his peers and chess commentators, fans and writers talk about Magnus, comment and handle with him and how Serral's opponents and SC2 commentators talk about Serral is striking and immediately evident. Regardless of differences in overall levels of competition between the games, there are nothing "completely out of mind" in the assumption that Serral may enjoy from some kind 'Magnus Carlsen - effect' within SC2 scene relative to his peers.
Already totally lost the count of how many times that is directly said or at least implied by mouths of his top level competition during various interviews over years. We can call it Serral -effect in SC2 context so nobody needs to get triggered by false straw man comparisons.
Otherwise comparisons are hardly fitting, tho not necessarily in all aspects "completely out of mind".
It’s not really mentioned enough as a plus point in the Serral column, but basically all pros I’ve ever heard asked, foreign or Korean have Serral as the man to beat. Not feared perhaps, at least for some, but definitely the toughest opponent going.
I mean these are his peers that are training with him, or they have to devise means to beat him if they’re drawn against him, they have to have some insight that counts for something.
I mean it was just a bit of fun to make some content for breaks, but the player cards Katowice had made kind of put it into perspective. 99s in multiple categories, and a decent gap in terms of average rating to even monsters like Reynor.
And the top pros will notice the little things, small optimisations or minor but impactful things that even regular GM level players won’t pick up on, never mind the rest of us plebs.
I asked soO during WCS Austin in 2017 (an event in which Nerchio made the finals) who the best Zerg in the event was. soO said it was Serral without hesitation (despite the fact that Serral was eliminated in the Ro8).
Another anecdote from Zhugeliang, a Chinese player live and play in Finland. in 2017 He told his friend Xiaose (one of scboy, famous SC2 commentators in China) that Finland has a genius Zerg player name Serral, who just finished school and finally decided to go full time in pro gaming. Zhugeliang believe this kid will become the best Zerg in the world one day.
Xiaose, who's been in the scene since early BW days, obviously shrugged it off and thought Zhugeliang was just talking nonsense. Best Zerg in the world? From Finland? Give me a break.
On February 17 2024 13:14 TornadoSteve wrote: Serral is the goat and its not even a debate. For many years, he has proven it and still doing so. But please, those who compare him to Magnus Carlsen are completely out of their mind. The longevity, the gap between him and his closest rivals are more importantly, the fact that SC 2 is almost dead while chess is more alive than ever, with many youngsters trying to push him should be more than enough to convince you.
Similarities in a sociological aspects of how his peers and chess commentators, fans and writers talk about Magnus, comment and handle with him and how Serral's opponents and SC2 commentators talk about Serral is striking and immediately evident. Regardless of differences in overall levels of competition between the games, there are nothing "completely out of mind" in the assumption that Serral may enjoy from some kind 'Magnus Carlsen - effect' within SC2 scene relative to his peers.
Already totally lost the count of how many times that is directly said or at least implied by mouths of his top level competition during various interviews over years. We can call it Serral -effect in SC2 context so nobody needs to get triggered by false straw man comparisons.
Otherwise comparisons are hardly fitting, tho not necessarily in all aspects "completely out of mind".
It’s not really mentioned enough as a plus point in the Serral column, but basically all pros I’ve ever heard asked, foreign or Korean have Serral as the man to beat. Not feared perhaps, at least for some, but definitely the toughest opponent going.
I mean these are his peers that are training with him, or they have to devise means to beat him if they’re drawn against him, they have to have some insight that counts for something.
I mean it was just a bit of fun to make some content for breaks, but the player cards Katowice had made kind of put it into perspective. 99s in multiple categories, and a decent gap in terms of average rating to even monsters like Reynor.
And the top pros will notice the little things, small optimisations or minor but impactful things that even regular GM level players won’t pick up on, never mind the rest of us plebs.
I asked soO during WCS Austin in 2017 (an event in which Nerchio made the finals) who the best Zerg in the event was. soO said it was Serral without hesitation (despite the fact that Serral was eliminated in the Ro8).
Another anecdote from Zhugeliang, a Chinese player live and play in Finland. in 2017 He told his friend Xiaose (one of scboy, famous SC2 commentators in China) that Finland has a genius Zerg player name Serral, who just finished school and finally decided to go full time in pro gaming. Zhugeliang believe this kid will become the best Zerg in the world one day.
Xiaose, who's been in the scene since early BW days, obviously shrugged it off and thought Zhugeliang was just talking nonsense. Best Zerg in the world? From Finland? Give me a break.
EPT![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/EPT/Katowice2024/ro12bracket.png)
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/EPT/Katowice2024/ro24groups2.png)
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