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#4: Mvp - Greatest Players of All Time - Page 2

Forum Index > SC2 General
307 CommentsPost a Reply
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Mizenhauer
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
United States1923 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-02-20 00:15:26
February 20 2024 00:09 GMT
#21
On February 20 2024 08:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2024 07:36 Waxangel wrote:
Dark fan riot starts now


I'm rioting !!

I'm joining the Dark > Rogue train to cope

I'm not even a fan of Taeja but i feel "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017" just isn't true, if we're talking about majority opinion. And in the Innovation article, it said Innovation and MVP were "top 2 GOAT candidate during first half of SC2". Opinions aside, that's just not accurate, at least half of people felt Taeja > MVP, it would have been better to just say that Inno MVP Taeja were top 3 GOAT candidates (not counting Life ofc).

Also I agree with the sentiment that class is permanent, form is temporary, but to me that just means that people who prove they can keep their form at the top level are just that much more impressive than those who don't. Nestea couldn't do it, for example. I woulda been OK with Inno #4 and MVP #5, but seemingly putting Dark (or Rogue) below soO, TY, and Rain is just really weird to me xD.

Just my opinion though. As a sOs fan I'll take it cus it means sOs is above Dark which is pretty sick. I felt he was too low on the 2015 TL list.


I hate to tell you, but there was an actual big fan poll in 2017 as a result of Inno winning Code S in which he was 1/2 with mvp (I forget who was first). This was a huge discussion at the time since Inno's Code S win meant he won more KIL than Mvp. And, as someone who was there, not only on the forums, but writing lots of stuff as well, at no point did anyone bring up TaeJa in those discussions. In fact, I'm astonished some people still rate him so highly when Stuchiu (who notoriously favored those foreign weekenders) didn't have him at one or two and since TaeJa retired he has obviously been jumped by at least Maru, Serral and Rogue, not to mention he was already behind Mvp according to Stuchiu.

Your revisionist history and inaccurate citations are not as fun as they once were.
┗|∵|┓Second Place in LB 28, Third Place in LB 29 and Destined to Be a Kong
FFXthebest
Profile Joined February 2024
75 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-02-20 00:11:16
February 20 2024 00:09 GMT
#22
MVP probably most overrated player in the history of SC2.

Won most of his championship during the terran op Era

To majority of the fanbase, his most iconic moment was his Mass BC’s getting crushed. None of his other games really stood out or are memorable
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26645 Posts
February 20 2024 00:17 GMT
#23
On February 20 2024 08:24 Comedy wrote:
I think mvp's wol's accomplishments are vastly overrated. He won a lot of Code S, but, he lost in so many Code S as well. How many Code S were there per year? How many MLG's, homestory cups, and other various international event did he lose in, even against mediocre players?

He mostly got smacked anytime he went overseas besides that one IEM..I don't think that Mvp was ever really as scary as someone like innovation or dark, who put fear in the hearts of their opponents, and made it seem like no foreigner could ever touch them.

Mvp was a series preparation specialist, did really well in GSL, but failed to ever look like truly the best player in WoL besides choosing builds really well.

I mean he didn’t, there’s plenty of numbers in the article laying that out.

The only argument against Mvp is he had those numbers and was smacking fools around because the level overall wasn’t as high. But he does have the numbers in those events.

Mvp was never actively bad at the prep or the tactical side of things (hello MKP), but he initially didn’t need it either. There was a period where he was the Innovation of his day and he’d just stomp you mechanically. Maybe Bomber could pump out a few more units with his macro, or MKP dance some bio around, MMA be dropping everywhere, but Mvp was like an 8/9 out of 10 at all of these things and the best Terran mechanically for a relatively long time.

He became reliant on it when injuries mounted for sure, when he entered his old man Mvp state
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26645 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-02-20 00:28:51
February 20 2024 00:28 GMT
#24
On February 20 2024 09:09 FFXthebest wrote:
MVP probably most overrated player in the history of SC2.

Won most of his championship during the terran op Era

To majority of the fanbaseme, his most iconic moment was his Mass BC’s getting crushed. None of his other games really stood out or are memorable

Fixed it for you sir. Nothing wrong with having an opinion but unless there’s some numbers to back it up, probably don’t make out it’s some wider consensus.

Mvp cheddaring Squirtle only to have him defend it well, only for him to then blunder and have Mvp pull the only move to give him a win condition is close to as memorable, and it’s from the same series.

Old man Mvp, who at this point had changed his entire style due to injury and going all the way to the final set of Code S against the best of the next generation in Life was pretty hype for many of us.

Old man Mvp in one of his last hurrahs, down to 9 workers at one point and digging in and taking Innovation to match point in a WCS Finals is an all-time great TvT set for many. What made it especially great is that while Innovation made mistakes (nobody doesn’t in a game of SC2), he didn’t throw the game or make some gigantic blunder. It was Mvp forcing minor errors and clawing his way back with some of the greatest decision-making you’ll ever see.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Mizenhauer
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
United States1923 Posts
February 20 2024 00:30 GMT
#25
On February 20 2024 09:28 WombaT wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2024 09:09 FFXthebest wrote:
MVP probably most overrated player in the history of SC2.

Won most of his championship during the terran op Era

To majority of the fanbaseme, his most iconic moment was his Mass BC’s getting crushed. None of his other games really stood out or are memorable

Fixed it for you sir. Nothing wrong with having an opinion but unless there’s some numbers to back it up, probably don’t make out it’s some wider consensus.

Mvp cheddaring Squirtle only to have him defend it well, only for him to then blunder and have Mvp pull the only move to give him a win condition is close to as memorable, and it’s from the same series.

Old man Mvp, who at this point had changed his entire style due to injury and going all the way to the final set of Code S against the best of the next generation in Life was pretty hype for many of us.

Old man Mvp in one of his last hurrahs, down to 9 workers at one point and digging in and taking Innovation to match point in a WCS Finals is an all-time great TvT set for many. What made it especially great is that while Innovation made mistakes (nobody doesn’t in a game of SC2), he didn’t throw the game or make some gigantic blunder. It was Mvp forcing minor errors and clawing his way back with some of the greatest decision-making you’ll ever see.


Everyone remembers game seven in that series. That's one of the greatest games ever because of the context. Although, I wonder how he felt the next day considering his teammates were throwing him in the air while he had back issues.
┗|∵|┓Second Place in LB 28, Third Place in LB 29 and Destined to Be a Kong
MyLovelyLurker
Profile Joined April 2007
France756 Posts
February 20 2024 01:16 GMT
#26
On February 20 2024 09:30 Mizenhauer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2024 09:28 WombaT wrote:
On February 20 2024 09:09 FFXthebest wrote:
MVP probably most overrated player in the history of SC2.

Won most of his championship during the terran op Era

To majority of the fanbaseme, his most iconic moment was his Mass BC’s getting crushed. None of his other games really stood out or are memorable

Fixed it for you sir. Nothing wrong with having an opinion but unless there’s some numbers to back it up, probably don’t make out it’s some wider consensus.

Mvp cheddaring Squirtle only to have him defend it well, only for him to then blunder and have Mvp pull the only move to give him a win condition is close to as memorable, and it’s from the same series.

Old man Mvp, who at this point had changed his entire style due to injury and going all the way to the final set of Code S against the best of the next generation in Life was pretty hype for many of us.

Old man Mvp in one of his last hurrahs, down to 9 workers at one point and digging in and taking Innovation to match point in a WCS Finals is an all-time great TvT set for many. What made it especially great is that while Innovation made mistakes (nobody doesn’t in a game of SC2), he didn’t throw the game or make some gigantic blunder. It was Mvp forcing minor errors and clawing his way back with some of the greatest decision-making you’ll ever see.


Everyone remembers game seven in that series. That's one of the greatest games ever because of the context. Although, I wonder how he felt the next day considering his teammates were throwing him in the air while he had back issues.


It's astonishing you remember all the little details though. If you write a book about SC2 history, you have a buyer.
"I just say, it doesn't matter win or lose, I just love Starcraft 2, I love this game, I love this stage, just play like in practice" - TIME/Oliveira
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10366 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-02-20 01:44:42
February 20 2024 01:17 GMT
#27
On February 20 2024 09:09 Mizenhauer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2024 08:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On February 20 2024 07:36 Waxangel wrote:
Dark fan riot starts now


I'm rioting !!

I'm joining the Dark > Rogue train to cope

I'm not even a fan of Taeja but i feel "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017" just isn't true, if we're talking about majority opinion. And in the Innovation article, it said Innovation and MVP were "top 2 GOAT candidate during first half of SC2". Opinions aside, that's just not accurate, at least half of people felt Taeja > MVP, it would have been better to just say that Inno MVP Taeja were top 3 GOAT candidates (not counting Life ofc).

Also I agree with the sentiment that class is permanent, form is temporary, but to me that just means that people who prove they can keep their form at the top level are just that much more impressive than those who don't. Nestea couldn't do it, for example. I woulda been OK with Inno #4 and MVP #5, but seemingly putting Dark (or Rogue) below soO, TY, and Rain is just really weird to me xD.

Just my opinion though. As a sOs fan I'll take it cus it means sOs is above Dark which is pretty sick. I felt he was too low on the 2015 TL list.


I hate to tell you, but there was an actual big fan poll in 2017 as a result of Inno winning Code S in which he was 1/2 with mvp (I forget who was first). This was a huge discussion at the time since Inno's Code S win meant he won more KIL than Mvp. And, as someone who was there, not only on the forums, but writing lots of stuff as well, at no point did anyone bring up TaeJa in those discussions. In fact, I'm astonished some people still rate him so highly when Stuchiu (who notoriously favored those foreign weekenders) didn't have him at one or two and since TaeJa retired he has obviously been jumped by at least Maru, Serral and Rogue, not to mention he was already behind Mvp according to Stuchiu.

Your revisionist history and inaccurate citations are not as fun as they once were.


You're twisting the wording a bit again, and I only use "revisionist history" to tease because you set the bar there and used those words when responding to someone else.

First, I'll say that I interpreted "first half of SC2" to be WoL to HotS as I forgot LotV came out as early as 2015, so if first half of SC2 includes up to Innovation's 2017 win, then I'm fine with not mentioning Taeja as a "top 3 goat until 2017".

But saying that MVP is "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017" paints a picture that he was the popular #1 choice for people from 2010 to 2017. Which isn't true, as there were some decent periods where players like Taeja (and Life) were pretty popular choices for GOAT, or rated above MVP. What if more people considered Innovation to be the GOAT than MVP in 2016 for example?

Even before Inno's 2017 GSL win, there were many who saw that Innovation was already the GOAT and that he racked up more/better tournament achievements than MVP, and your claim doesn't illustrate that. It implies that the majority of people considered MVP > Innovation until Innovation won more KIL. At the worst, you could argue or find evidence that popular sentiment might have been roughly even between the 2 players, since after all the main part of both their resumes (KIL) were equal.

If you want to refer mainly to the 2017 fan poll (wasn't aware, but that's cool if it happened, I assume it was on TL?), then i think it would have been a more responsible statement to say "Top 2 GOAT as voted by 2017 fan poll". The part where you're injecting your opinion and making a claim is when you go from that to "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017". Wouldn't you also need polls to back up that claim showing that other players weren't considered the GOAT throughout the years, and that it was only MVP?

I also remember that when people were comparing MVP and Innovation in 2017, one thing you have to keep in mind is that the comparison between them was highly discussed at the time not necessarily because there weren't other people who considered players like sOs to be #2, but because MVP was the only remaining player whose strongest part of their resume (KIL wins) matched Innovation's in the same metric, and Innovation surpassing that metric only made it even clearer.

Stuchiu may not have had him at #1-2, but he was #3 right behind MVP/Life, and above Inno on both the SC2 GOAT and HotS GOAT lists. I was around at the time too and I remember there being a decent amount of people feeling that MVP was overrated due to WoL nostalgia and that Life should have been ranked above him, with some (but less people) arguing that he should be below Taeja. At the time people felt that Life surpassed MVP, and Taeja was Life's biggest rival.

Also just as a sOs fan, wanted to remind people for fun that I remember the narrative the GSL and Tastosis built was that the the winner between Inno vs sOs could claim GOAT. Of course it was partially for hype but sOs had an insane 3x WC, and a GSL win over Inno would have made his case for GOAT one that would need to be taken seriously. Meanwhile Inno would have stopped sOs from challenging his case for GOAT, and cement himself 100% clearly above MVP. Very similar to how Serral is already widely considered GOAT, but beating Maru at Kato stopped Maru from challenging it.

"Clash of the two best SC2 career players": https://imgur.com/nFUzJMv
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
Mizenhauer
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
United States1923 Posts
February 20 2024 01:21 GMT
#28
On February 20 2024 10:16 MyLovelyLurker wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2024 09:30 Mizenhauer wrote:
On February 20 2024 09:28 WombaT wrote:
On February 20 2024 09:09 FFXthebest wrote:
MVP probably most overrated player in the history of SC2.

Won most of his championship during the terran op Era

To majority of the fanbaseme, his most iconic moment was his Mass BC’s getting crushed. None of his other games really stood out or are memorable

Fixed it for you sir. Nothing wrong with having an opinion but unless there’s some numbers to back it up, probably don’t make out it’s some wider consensus.

Mvp cheddaring Squirtle only to have him defend it well, only for him to then blunder and have Mvp pull the only move to give him a win condition is close to as memorable, and it’s from the same series.

Old man Mvp, who at this point had changed his entire style due to injury and going all the way to the final set of Code S against the best of the next generation in Life was pretty hype for many of us.

Old man Mvp in one of his last hurrahs, down to 9 workers at one point and digging in and taking Innovation to match point in a WCS Finals is an all-time great TvT set for many. What made it especially great is that while Innovation made mistakes (nobody doesn’t in a game of SC2), he didn’t throw the game or make some gigantic blunder. It was Mvp forcing minor errors and clawing his way back with some of the greatest decision-making you’ll ever see.


Everyone remembers game seven in that series. That's one of the greatest games ever because of the context. Although, I wonder how he felt the next day considering his teammates were throwing him in the air while he had back issues.


It's astonishing you remember all the little details though. If you write a book about SC2 history, you have a buyer.


That's one of the kindest things anyone has said to me on the site. I really appreciate it. A lot of the credit also goes to Wax, who filled in the gaps, held me to a super high standard and was an incredible editor throughout the process.
┗|∵|┓Second Place in LB 28, Third Place in LB 29 and Destined to Be a Kong
Mizenhauer
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
United States1923 Posts
February 20 2024 01:29 GMT
#29
On February 20 2024 10:17 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2024 09:09 Mizenhauer wrote:
On February 20 2024 08:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On February 20 2024 07:36 Waxangel wrote:
Dark fan riot starts now


I'm rioting !!

I'm joining the Dark > Rogue train to cope

I'm not even a fan of Taeja but i feel "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017" just isn't true, if we're talking about majority opinion. And in the Innovation article, it said Innovation and MVP were "top 2 GOAT candidate during first half of SC2". Opinions aside, that's just not accurate, at least half of people felt Taeja > MVP, it would have been better to just say that Inno MVP Taeja were top 3 GOAT candidates (not counting Life ofc).

Also I agree with the sentiment that class is permanent, form is temporary, but to me that just means that people who prove they can keep their form at the top level are just that much more impressive than those who don't. Nestea couldn't do it, for example. I woulda been OK with Inno #4 and MVP #5, but seemingly putting Dark (or Rogue) below soO, TY, and Rain is just really weird to me xD.

Just my opinion though. As a sOs fan I'll take it cus it means sOs is above Dark which is pretty sick. I felt he was too low on the 2015 TL list.


I hate to tell you, but there was an actual big fan poll in 2017 as a result of Inno winning Code S in which he was 1/2 with mvp (I forget who was first). This was a huge discussion at the time since Inno's Code S win meant he won more KIL than Mvp. And, as someone who was there, not only on the forums, but writing lots of stuff as well, at no point did anyone bring up TaeJa in those discussions. In fact, I'm astonished some people still rate him so highly when Stuchiu (who notoriously favored those foreign weekenders) didn't have him at one or two and since TaeJa retired he has obviously been jumped by at least Maru, Serral and Rogue, not to mention he was already behind Mvp according to Stuchiu.

Your revisionist history and inaccurate citations are not as fun as they once were.


You're twisting the wording a bit again, and I only use "revisionist history" to tease because you set the bar there and used those words when responding to someone else.

First, I'll say that I interpreted "first half of SC2" to be WoL to HotS as I forgot LotV came out as early as 2015, so if first half of SC2 includes up to Innovation's 2017 win, then I'm fine with not mentioning Taeja as a "top 3 goat until 2017".

But saying that MVP is "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017" paints a picture that he was the popular #1 choice for people from 2010 to 2017. Which isn't true, as there were some decent periods where players like Taeja (and Life) were pretty popular choices for GOAT, or rated above MVP. What if more people considered Innovation to be the GOAT than MVP in 2016 for example?

Even before Inno's 2017 GSL win, there were many who saw that Innovation was already the GOAT and that he racked up more/better tournament achievements than MVP, and your claim doesn't illustrate that. It implies that the majority of people considered MVP > Innovation until Innovation won more KIL. At the worst, you could argue or find evidence that popular sentiment might have been roughly even between the 2 players, since after all the main part of both their resumes (KIL) were equal.

If you want to refer mainly to the 2017 fan poll (wasn't aware, but that's cool if it happened, I assume it was on TL?), then i think it would have been a more responsible statement to say "Top 2 GOAT as voted by 2017 fan poll". The part where you're injecting your opinion and making a claim is when you go from that to "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017". Wouldn't you also need polls to back up that claim showing that other players weren't considered the GOAT throughout the years, and that it was only MVP?

I also remember that when people were comparing MVP and Innovation in 2017, one thing you have to keep in mind is that the comparison between them was highly discussed at the time not necessarily because there weren't other people who considered players like sOs to be #2, but because MVP was the only remaining player whose strongest part of their resume (KIL wins) matched Innovation's, and was the only obstacle left for Innovation being the uncontested GOAT. It wasn't necessarily because everyone felt that MVP was top 2, though many people did of course.

Stuchiu may not have had him at #1-2, but he was #3 right behind MVP/Life, and above Inno on both the SC2 GOAT and HotS GOAT lists. I was around at the time too and I remember there being a decent amount of people feeling that MVP was overrated due to WoL nostalgia and that Life should have been ranked above him, with some (but less people) arguing that he should be below Taeja.


I was harsh. That's a solid response. I think a lot of people either really overate or underrate TaeJa and I'm sometimes not sure which I am. I remember when he came back to Korea in 2016. The general Korean take on TaeJa was that he was a loser who went to beat bad white people because he couldn't win in SK. He played some pretty solid games against Zest, however, in Code S (this was the season when Zest went 18-3 or whatever) and the fact that he gave Zest one of his toughest tests changed the perception some.
┗|∵|┓Second Place in LB 28, Third Place in LB 29 and Destined to Be a Kong
MyLovelyLurker
Profile Joined April 2007
France756 Posts
February 20 2024 01:31 GMT
#30
On February 20 2024 10:21 Mizenhauer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2024 10:16 MyLovelyLurker wrote:
On February 20 2024 09:30 Mizenhauer wrote:
On February 20 2024 09:28 WombaT wrote:
On February 20 2024 09:09 FFXthebest wrote:
MVP probably most overrated player in the history of SC2.

Won most of his championship during the terran op Era

To majority of the fanbaseme, his most iconic moment was his Mass BC’s getting crushed. None of his other games really stood out or are memorable

Fixed it for you sir. Nothing wrong with having an opinion but unless there’s some numbers to back it up, probably don’t make out it’s some wider consensus.

Mvp cheddaring Squirtle only to have him defend it well, only for him to then blunder and have Mvp pull the only move to give him a win condition is close to as memorable, and it’s from the same series.

Old man Mvp, who at this point had changed his entire style due to injury and going all the way to the final set of Code S against the best of the next generation in Life was pretty hype for many of us.

Old man Mvp in one of his last hurrahs, down to 9 workers at one point and digging in and taking Innovation to match point in a WCS Finals is an all-time great TvT set for many. What made it especially great is that while Innovation made mistakes (nobody doesn’t in a game of SC2), he didn’t throw the game or make some gigantic blunder. It was Mvp forcing minor errors and clawing his way back with some of the greatest decision-making you’ll ever see.


Everyone remembers game seven in that series. That's one of the greatest games ever because of the context. Although, I wonder how he felt the next day considering his teammates were throwing him in the air while he had back issues.


It's astonishing you remember all the little details though. If you write a book about SC2 history, you have a buyer.


That's one of the kindest things anyone has said to me on the site. I really appreciate it. A lot of the credit also goes to Wax, who filled in the gaps, held me to a super high standard and was an incredible editor throughout the process.


Thanks ! It's only natural. We all love to curse and whine at times, but deep down I think many are incredibly appreciative of how much time and thought you share with us out of passion for the game we all love.
"I just say, it doesn't matter win or lose, I just love Starcraft 2, I love this game, I love this stage, just play like in practice" - TIME/Oliveira
JJH777
Profile Joined January 2011
United States4416 Posts
February 20 2024 01:33 GMT
#31
The distance between Mvp and whoever the second best player was in WoL is really absurd. Nestea, MC, Leenock, MMA, DRG, Taeja all have missing factors in their WoL results that make them nowhere near him imo. Not even sure who else would be a candidate. His dominance of such a volatile era was so impressive. People use the game not being figured out and some of his early eliminations against him but I think the extreme volatility of that era makes his results even more impressive.
arcane1129
Profile Joined January 2011
United States271 Posts
February 20 2024 01:39 GMT
#32
It's a nice article, and I don't care about the relative positions of Dark and MVP...but if Dark doesn't make the list, I'm rioting.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26645 Posts
February 20 2024 01:53 GMT
#33
On February 20 2024 10:29 Mizenhauer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2024 10:17 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On February 20 2024 09:09 Mizenhauer wrote:
On February 20 2024 08:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On February 20 2024 07:36 Waxangel wrote:
Dark fan riot starts now


I'm rioting !!

I'm joining the Dark > Rogue train to cope

I'm not even a fan of Taeja but i feel "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017" just isn't true, if we're talking about majority opinion. And in the Innovation article, it said Innovation and MVP were "top 2 GOAT candidate during first half of SC2". Opinions aside, that's just not accurate, at least half of people felt Taeja > MVP, it would have been better to just say that Inno MVP Taeja were top 3 GOAT candidates (not counting Life ofc).

Also I agree with the sentiment that class is permanent, form is temporary, but to me that just means that people who prove they can keep their form at the top level are just that much more impressive than those who don't. Nestea couldn't do it, for example. I woulda been OK with Inno #4 and MVP #5, but seemingly putting Dark (or Rogue) below soO, TY, and Rain is just really weird to me xD.

Just my opinion though. As a sOs fan I'll take it cus it means sOs is above Dark which is pretty sick. I felt he was too low on the 2015 TL list.


I hate to tell you, but there was an actual big fan poll in 2017 as a result of Inno winning Code S in which he was 1/2 with mvp (I forget who was first). This was a huge discussion at the time since Inno's Code S win meant he won more KIL than Mvp. And, as someone who was there, not only on the forums, but writing lots of stuff as well, at no point did anyone bring up TaeJa in those discussions. In fact, I'm astonished some people still rate him so highly when Stuchiu (who notoriously favored those foreign weekenders) didn't have him at one or two and since TaeJa retired he has obviously been jumped by at least Maru, Serral and Rogue, not to mention he was already behind Mvp according to Stuchiu.

Your revisionist history and inaccurate citations are not as fun as they once were.


You're twisting the wording a bit again, and I only use "revisionist history" to tease because you set the bar there and used those words when responding to someone else.

First, I'll say that I interpreted "first half of SC2" to be WoL to HotS as I forgot LotV came out as early as 2015, so if first half of SC2 includes up to Innovation's 2017 win, then I'm fine with not mentioning Taeja as a "top 3 goat until 2017".

But saying that MVP is "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017" paints a picture that he was the popular #1 choice for people from 2010 to 2017. Which isn't true, as there were some decent periods where players like Taeja (and Life) were pretty popular choices for GOAT, or rated above MVP. What if more people considered Innovation to be the GOAT than MVP in 2016 for example?

Even before Inno's 2017 GSL win, there were many who saw that Innovation was already the GOAT and that he racked up more/better tournament achievements than MVP, and your claim doesn't illustrate that. It implies that the majority of people considered MVP > Innovation until Innovation won more KIL. At the worst, you could argue or find evidence that popular sentiment might have been roughly even between the 2 players, since after all the main part of both their resumes (KIL) were equal.

If you want to refer mainly to the 2017 fan poll (wasn't aware, but that's cool if it happened, I assume it was on TL?), then i think it would have been a more responsible statement to say "Top 2 GOAT as voted by 2017 fan poll". The part where you're injecting your opinion and making a claim is when you go from that to "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017". Wouldn't you also need polls to back up that claim showing that other players weren't considered the GOAT throughout the years, and that it was only MVP?

I also remember that when people were comparing MVP and Innovation in 2017, one thing you have to keep in mind is that the comparison between them was highly discussed at the time not necessarily because there weren't other people who considered players like sOs to be #2, but because MVP was the only remaining player whose strongest part of their resume (KIL wins) matched Innovation's, and was the only obstacle left for Innovation being the uncontested GOAT. It wasn't necessarily because everyone felt that MVP was top 2, though many people did of course.

Stuchiu may not have had him at #1-2, but he was #3 right behind MVP/Life, and above Inno on both the SC2 GOAT and HotS GOAT lists. I was around at the time too and I remember there being a decent amount of people feeling that MVP was overrated due to WoL nostalgia and that Life should have been ranked above him, with some (but less people) arguing that he should be below Taeja.


I was harsh. That's a solid response. I think a lot of people either really overate or underrate TaeJa and I'm sometimes not sure which I am. I remember when he came back to Korea in 2016. The general Korean take on TaeJa was that he was a loser who went to beat bad white people because he couldn't win in SK. He played some pretty solid games against Zest, however, in Code S (this was the season when Zest went 18-3 or whatever) and the fact that he gave Zest one of his toughest tests changed the perception some.

I have made it my life’s ambition to be the first to accurately rate Taeja.

Yeah looking through his record doing my ‘research’ :p He made a playoff placement in Code S, back when that was more noteworthy, way later than I’d thought.

I think it’s incomplete as I vividly remember him playing a very impressive series against Dark, after he’d apparently retired for good a heroic losing effort ultimately but you got that glimpse of what he was capable of. Or perhaps I’m getting so old that I’m getting my timeline mixed up and it was way less recent than I thought!
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Bulmyeolja
Profile Joined April 2023
United States2 Posts
February 20 2024 01:53 GMT
#34
Considering that either Dark or Rogue will have to be left off of this list (leaving off Maru/Serral would be so deeply deranged that it barely warrants mention) I find this placement to be extraordinarily disappointing. I would argue that, if you were going to include him at all, Mvp is number 10 considering who has been placed here already.
Mumei
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States258 Posts
February 20 2024 01:59 GMT
#35
This is such a weird blind spot for me. I didn't watch this period of SC2 competitively at all and while I'd heard his name I had no idea that Mvp was as dominant as this in the early years or even that he was a major figure. I think I was still only paying attention to BW at this point. But it's a really specific blind spot because I recognized basically all the other names as being major early SC2 figures, just not The Guy.

Don't know how it happened anyway, but it did make this a nice history lesson for me.
Mizenhauer
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
United States1923 Posts
February 20 2024 02:09 GMT
#36
On February 20 2024 10:59 Mumei wrote:
This is such a weird blind spot for me. I didn't watch this period of SC2 competitively at all and while I'd heard his name I had no idea that Mvp was as dominant as this in the early years or even that he was a major figure. I think I was still only paying attention to BW at this point. But it's a really specific blind spot because I recognized basically all the other names as being major early SC2 figures, just not The Guy.

Don't know how it happened anyway, but it did make this a nice history lesson for me.


The general conceit of the Mvp case is: You know he was good, but you forgot how good!
┗|∵|┓Second Place in LB 28, Third Place in LB 29 and Destined to Be a Kong
RPR_Tempest
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Australia7798 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-02-20 02:20:52
February 20 2024 02:19 GMT
#37
On February 20 2024 10:17 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2024 09:09 Mizenhauer wrote:
On February 20 2024 08:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On February 20 2024 07:36 Waxangel wrote:
Dark fan riot starts now


I'm rioting !!

I'm joining the Dark > Rogue train to cope

I'm not even a fan of Taeja but i feel "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017" just isn't true, if we're talking about majority opinion. And in the Innovation article, it said Innovation and MVP were "top 2 GOAT candidate during first half of SC2". Opinions aside, that's just not accurate, at least half of people felt Taeja > MVP, it would have been better to just say that Inno MVP Taeja were top 3 GOAT candidates (not counting Life ofc).

Also I agree with the sentiment that class is permanent, form is temporary, but to me that just means that people who prove they can keep their form at the top level are just that much more impressive than those who don't. Nestea couldn't do it, for example. I woulda been OK with Inno #4 and MVP #5, but seemingly putting Dark (or Rogue) below soO, TY, and Rain is just really weird to me xD.

Just my opinion though. As a sOs fan I'll take it cus it means sOs is above Dark which is pretty sick. I felt he was too low on the 2015 TL list.


I hate to tell you, but there was an actual big fan poll in 2017 as a result of Inno winning Code S in which he was 1/2 with mvp (I forget who was first). This was a huge discussion at the time since Inno's Code S win meant he won more KIL than Mvp. And, as someone who was there, not only on the forums, but writing lots of stuff as well, at no point did anyone bring up TaeJa in those discussions. In fact, I'm astonished some people still rate him so highly when Stuchiu (who notoriously favored those foreign weekenders) didn't have him at one or two and since TaeJa retired he has obviously been jumped by at least Maru, Serral and Rogue, not to mention he was already behind Mvp according to Stuchiu.

Your revisionist history and inaccurate citations are not as fun as they once were.


You're twisting the wording a bit again, and I only use "revisionist history" to tease because you set the bar there and used those words when responding to someone else.

First, I'll say that I interpreted "first half of SC2" to be WoL to HotS as I forgot LotV came out as early as 2015, so if first half of SC2 includes up to Innovation's 2017 win, then I'm fine with not mentioning Taeja as a "top 3 goat until 2017".

But saying that MVP is "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017" paints a picture that he was the popular #1 choice for people from 2010 to 2017. Which isn't true, as there were some decent periods where players like Taeja (and Life) were pretty popular choices for GOAT, or rated above MVP. What if more people considered Innovation to be the GOAT than MVP in 2016 for example?

Even before Inno's 2017 GSL win, there were many who saw that Innovation was already the GOAT and that he racked up more/better tournament achievements than MVP, and your claim doesn't illustrate that. It implies that the majority of people considered MVP > Innovation until Innovation won more KIL. At the worst, you could argue or find evidence that popular sentiment might have been roughly even between the 2 players, since after all the main part of both their resumes (KIL) were equal.

If you want to refer mainly to the 2017 fan poll (wasn't aware, but that's cool if it happened, I assume it was on TL?), then i think it would have been a more responsible statement to say "Top 2 GOAT as voted by 2017 fan poll". The part where you're injecting your opinion and making a claim is when you go from that to "widely considered to be GOAT until 2017". Wouldn't you also need polls to back up that claim showing that other players weren't considered the GOAT throughout the years, and that it was only MVP?

I also remember that when people were comparing MVP and Innovation in 2017, one thing you have to keep in mind is that the comparison between them was highly discussed at the time not necessarily because there weren't other people who considered players like sOs to be #2, but because MVP was the only remaining player whose strongest part of their resume (KIL wins) matched Innovation's in the same metric, and Innovation surpassing that metric only made it even clearer.

Stuchiu may not have had him at #1-2, but he was #3 right behind MVP/Life, and above Inno on both the SC2 GOAT and HotS GOAT lists. I was around at the time too and I remember there being a decent amount of people feeling that MVP was overrated due to WoL nostalgia and that Life should have been ranked above him, with some (but less people) arguing that he should be below Taeja. At the time people felt that Life surpassed MVP, and Taeja was Life's biggest rival.

Also just as a sOs fan, wanted to remind people for fun that I remember the narrative the GSL and Tastosis built was that the the winner between Inno vs sOs could claim GOAT. Of course it was partially for hype but sOs had an insane 3x WC, and a GSL win over Inno would have made his case for GOAT one that would need to be taken seriously. Meanwhile Inno would have stopped sOs from challenging his case for GOAT, and cement himself 100% clearly above MVP. Very similar to how Serral is already widely considered GOAT, but beating Maru at Kato stopped Maru from challenging it.

"Clash of the two best SC2 career players": https://imgur.com/nFUzJMv


Literally nobody at the time genuinely considered TaeJa to be a GOAT candidate, come on now. Stu copped a lot of shit and was accused of Liquid bias to the point it was a meme for the next couple of years for putting TaeJa that high on his GOAT list.

Nobody would argue against the fact that TaeJa was the best player at foreign tournaments, and that 2 year period was the real deal and incredibly impressive. People had their eye on him, but without a GSL win to his name nobody on the planet was going to call him GOAT unless you were one of the weirdos who valued foreign tournaments just as much as Korean ones.

It's sort of like an early version of the Serral argument, where a player is dominant in foreign tournaments, but lacks the results in Korea. Serral solidified his claim by continuing to dominate foreign tournaments for a longer period than TaeJa did (and in much bigger, more important tournaments), and additionally the Korean scene even in 2018 was a pale imitation of how competitive it was in HotS, so getting that GSL win was nowhere near as impressive or important.

Take nothing away from TaeJa, that 2013/2014 is one of the greatest runs any player went on. But it always had that big asterisk next to it. Even back then people were getting into this exact argument.

Mvp vs Life was the real big debate, as you mentioned.
Soundwave, Zerg player from Canberra, Australia. @SoundwaveSC
Nasigil
Profile Joined July 2023
137 Posts
February 20 2024 02:28 GMT
#38
I never understand why that one comeback against Innovation was brought up so much, almost as part of his claim for GOAT ranking. It's very impressive but it's just one game, in a series that he eventually lost. Each player at this caliber have multiple extremely impressive games like this.
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45672 Posts
February 20 2024 02:29 GMT
#39
Yay Mvp! I'll always have a special place in my heart for Mvp, Nestea, and MC. That was the era where I followed SC2 the closest.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
kaos00
Profile Joined September 2010
United States125 Posts
February 20 2024 02:44 GMT
#40
MVP deserves a placement in the middle of this list. He should probably be a little lower since his match/game win percentages aren't that exceptional considering his weaker competition but he's got the tournament wins to make it a nitpick.

Though by disregarding the eras weakness, I'm now sensing that Serral is 99% miz's goat. Can't dock Serral down for that now.
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