EPTUnfortunately he's just not consistent enough to bring it all the way in a GSL format, probably partially due to injury reason. I am sad that his prime years doesn't overlap with LotV because it definitely suits his style better.
#4: Mvp - Greatest Players of All Time - Page 3
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Nasigil
137 Posts
Unfortunately he's just not consistent enough to bring it all the way in a GSL format, probably partially due to injury reason. I am sad that his prime years doesn't overlap with LotV because it definitely suits his style better. | ||
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ZAWGURN
96 Posts
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RPR_Tempest
Australia7798 Posts
On February 20 2024 11:28 Nasigil wrote: 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. Because the greater story and narrative at the time adds so much to it. It was the greatest single game comeback in SC2 history. It's one thing when you've got like, Mvp vs Elazer. Now was that an impressive comeback? Sure, but Mvp is expected to win against Elazer. It's very different when the insane comeback happens against a player he is massively, massively outclassed by. One of the game's most legendary and memorable moments. To quote Handwerk Reviews (https://handwerkreviews.wordpress.com/), a writer I truly admire. He's talking about a pro wrestler here, but every bit of it applies to Mvp too. "Real sports are full of times when Our Heroes hit the wall, and cannot do the things they used to do anymore. They lost their lift up or their burst forward, and beyond winning, cannot do the things we’re used to seeing. As one of the greats and most frequently quoted pieces of work on this blog says, the cruel randomness of the sport is never in flukes, but in how much changes, and how quickly. It’s no fun, but you watch enough, and you get used to it as an inevitability, and a fact of life. Time’s arrow neither stands still nor reverses, it only marches forward. Nobody catches it, but for a moment at the end, Hiroshi Tanahashi is able to keep pace with it, like nobody else can." Read the old TL article on Mvp, hopefully it will help you understand the full context. https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/484252-greatest-players-of-all-time-the-finale | ||
Liquid`Ret
Netherlands4520 Posts
Some of the wins for MVP on this list are actually not as impressive as they look, namely: 2011 Blizzcon invitational (He only had to beat nestea and sen) 2011 WCG (He beat Kas, Bling, Xigua) 2012 IEM Cologne (Only foreigners, however beating vortix and nerchio is still pretty good.) 2011 GSL world championship. (An invitational where the competition really wasn't very strong - and he lost to Dimaga in the Korea vs the World event.) I do think his 2011 MLG Anaheim win is pretty nice, although it was the blueflame tournament where terrans rekt everything, he still came out on top amongst the korean terrans. His code S wins are of course impressive, but they are all won before the kespa teams switched, and almost all of his opponents, healthy or unhealthy, quickly proved that they weren't able to keep up with kespa players within a year or so of them having swapped over. The people that mvp beat to get his wins really wouldn't do much of anything after the kespa teams made the switch. Now of course I think MVP is a great player - and the undisputed best player of wings - although nestea and mc were trailing pretty closely behind.) I may also be biased, because I actually played mvp twice in offline events, and won both times. For some reason going into a game with Mvp really wasn't that scary as it was going into a game with MMA, or MC. He was a very good player but it always felt like there would be chances, even as a foreigner, if you ran into him in these overseas events that he attended such as MLG, or homestory cup. I really don't believe you can compare mvp's carreer to dark's and have mvp come out on top, I really thought dark would take #4, and mvp would fall just short of the top10, since the game has moved along so many years since 2012 and some of these players have shown incredibly longevity. Maybe if mvp had stayed healthy he would have had a chance to prove himself against kespa competition, but that never happend, and almost all those players he competed against showed themselves unable to do so. Someone like Dark is a real terror of starcraft 2 and for many years whenever watching a tournament and he'd be vs a foreigner, you just knew he would never lose. It never quite felt that way with Mvp. Just my 2 cents. | ||
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Nasigil
137 Posts
He does get extra nostalgia points for being a former GOAT and a pioneer at figuring the game out during the first couple years. In hindsight his peak and overall career was really short, it's really just that one and half year, it didn't feel like it because back at 2012 that's just the entirety of SC2's lifespan, but 12 years later, there are many player that has passed him in terms of overall achievement. I'd definitely put Dark and Innovation above Mvp. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10366 Posts
On February 20 2024 11:45 Nasigil wrote: Taeja is not considered GOAT candidate for good reason, but I will always lament how he gets disrespected by Koreans. Before his first retirement, he held a winning record against Innovation, Life and Zest, even records against Mvp and sOs, some of biggest GOAT candidates at his time. His peak rivals anyone not named Serral and Maru. Summer of Taeja for three years straight are still some of the most legendary runs in SC2 history for me. Damn I didn't know he had winning records against all those players,m even if it's only slightly or small sample size, it's something to be very proud of for sure. I miss the Summer of Taeja meme now that you mention it ;( Also hmm you're right, LotV's more spread out gameplay and multitasking (and higher skill ceiling I'd say because of those things) might have allowed players like Taeja to thrive even more. On February 20 2024 11:54 Liquid`Ret wrote: For the year 2011, he actually got outperformed in GSL by Nestea (who had an amazing year too - he ended up with more GSL points than MVP). Some of the wins for MVP on this list are actually not as impressive as they look, namely: 2011 Blizzcon invitational (He only had to beat nestea and sen) 2011 WCG (He beat Kas, Bling, Xigua) 2012 IEM Cologne (Only foreigners, however beating vortix and nerchio is still pretty good.) 2011 GSL world championship. (An invitational where the competition really wasn't very strong - and he lost to Dimaga in the Korea vs the World event.) I do think his 2011 MLG Anaheim win is pretty nice, although it was the blueflame tournament where terrans rekt everything, he still came out on top amongst the korean terrans. His code S wins are of course impressive, but they are all won before the kespa teams switched, and almost all of his opponents, healthy or unhealthy, quickly proved that they weren't able to keep up with kespa players within a year or so of them having swapped over. The people that mvp beat to get his wins really wouldn't do much of anything after the kespa teams made the switch. Now of course I think MVP is a great player - and the undisputed best player of wings - although nestea and mc were trailing pretty closely behind.) I may also be biased, because I actually played mvp twice in offline events, and won both times. For some reason going into a game with Mvp really wasn't that scary as it was going into a game with MMA, or MC. He was a very good player but it always felt like there would be chances, even as a foreigner, if you ran into him in these overseas events that he attended such as MLG, or homestory cup. I really don't believe you can compare mvp's carreer to dark's and have mvp come out on top, I really thought dark would take #4, and mvp would fall just short of the top10, since the game has moved along so many years since 2012 and some of these players have shown incredibly longevity. Maybe if mvp had stayed healthy he would have had a chance to prove himself against kespa competition, but that never happend, and almost all those players he competed against showed themselves unable to do so. Someone like Dark is a real terror of starcraft 2 and for many years whenever watching a tournament and he'd be vs a foreigner, you just knew he would never lose. It never quite felt that way with Mvp. Just my 2 cents. Whoa, a rare Liquid Ret spotted !! Interesting to hear your insights, your wins vs MVP were impressive and worth mentioning here. I did feel that Nestea during his peak year (before MVP started interferring with him hehe) was more invincible than MVP was, even though I'd consider MVP to have higher heights (due to besting Nestea in head to heads, though that could also be explained as Nestea peaking slightly earlier than MVP's, as seen by the timing of their GSL wins). As a Nestea and MC fan and someone that's always felt that people perceive MVP to be too big of a gap above them, it's nice to hear someone feel Nestea and MC were trailing relatively close behind. I've often criticized MVP's high placements on people's lists throughout the years because I feel the same about many of the achievements he had that set him apart from Nestea/MC: they just weren't very competitive or impressive, besides MLG Anaheim which was crazy with all the TvT specialists trying their damn hardest to take MVP down (Boxer, MMA, Ryung, heck even Ganzi with the surprise strength vs MVP that tournament). The "4 GSL win" thing is disingenuous first off even if that's what GSL said back then, because 1 of them wasn't a Code S, it was the "world championship" which had a bracket half of foreigners which were basically a free win at the time. And the 2011 Blizzcon Invitational is almost nothing because he beat 2 Zergs when the map pool was very outdated and TvZ favored, since they wanted to pick familiar maps that more casual and foreign fans would be familiar with instead of the more current maps tournaments were using. It was so painful trying to see Nestea do anything on Shattered Temple vs MVP. If it was a more fair map pool Nestea would have had a real chance of putting up a good match. I saw the Blizzcon Invitational as more of a fun little showmatch tournament, nothing serious, and I felt that vibe with the players and other spectators too. I think all these little things - MVP peaking slightly after Nestea, beating Nestea at Blizzcon Invitational, racking up these 1st places (still nice but not super impressive, honestly anything less than 1st place at those tournaments would be bad for someone who won 3 Code S), his ballsy bunker rush vs Squirtle and genius marine flank to come back and win it all, his comeback game vs Innovation, etc. end up propelling him high above Nestea and MC in many's eyes, and for a "greatest" title these emotional factors definitely do hold a lot of merit and weight. Though purely career and achivements wise speaking, I always felt MC was only slightly behind MVP, and Nestea only slightly behind MC. On February 20 2024 12:12 Nasigil wrote: He does get extra nostalgia points for being a former GOAT and a pioneer at figuring the game out during the first couple years. In hindsight his peak and overall career was really short, it's really just that one and half year, it didn't feel like it because back at 2012 that's just the entirety of SC2's lifespan, but 12 years later, there are many player that has passed him in terms of overall achievement. I'd definitely put Dark and Innovation above Mvp. Aye, Terran was the most fleshed out and versatile race in WoL, and the most OP for the longest duration, IMO anyway. But I think many felt similarly about WoL. (Though it's totally fair to not account for balance, since that can get messy). And yeah, it really was only about 1-1.5 years of peak dominance, and Nestea also had 1 year of peak dominance as well (with its end overlapping the beginning of MVP's). It's always a weird feeling looking back and realizing that LotV came out in 2015, and that WoL isn't "1/3" of the game's history. It's more like 1/5 of it, and MVP didn't even dominate all 3 years of WoL. I always felt that one thing people forgot about Nestea's period of dominance is that he truly seemed invincible, in a time when Zerg was perceived to be weak (given the maps at the time, at least). Until he was stopped by MVP of course, but Nestea came back to win his 3rd GSL even after MVP. I felt that MVP had more ups and downs during his period, and showed weakness vs certain players (though this could be attributed to the scene quickly developing and becoming more competitive than in Nestea's slightly earlier time). | ||
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Maksim2010
41 Posts
On February 20 2024 08:36 Poopi wrote: I highly doubt it’s a troll, Théodore Mvp has been the uncontested GOAT of WoL, and was still accomplishing things in HotS ? MVP disappeared after kespa players switched over.Like in broodwar he and Nestea didn’t win anything after the real goats came over. | ||
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Whatson
United States5357 Posts
to be the best player at a time when there were thousands of players joining the scene and incredible amounts of talent/new blood is no mean feat. that's not even considering how much of a revolutionary he was for the terran race (the first real macro terran). just read stuchiu's original writeup and be amazed: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/484252-greatest-players-of-all-time-the-finale. | ||
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Nasigil
137 Posts
Like how do you have an sOs article without listing his proxy Nexus against Bunny? Or Innovation's legendary WESG finals against Serral? Mvp one is okay tho. We need more games! Especially for whatever top 3 you are cooking up. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10366 Posts
On February 20 2024 13:30 Nasigil wrote: Miz, I really appreciate your GOAT list write up, but I do find it a bit lacking in terms of the signature games listed in the end. In the old GOAT list in 2015 each player has like 20 games listed and you really could dive into them to get a grasp on how their play styles are like. This list just give you like 5 games, and often not even include some of their most iconic games. Like how do you have an sOs article without listing his proxy Nexus against Bunny? Or Innovation's legendary WESG finals against Serral? Mvp one is okay tho. We need more games! Especially for whatever top 3 you are cooking up. Just list every single match for Serral cus every game is top tier SC2. GOAT! | ||
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syfRize
7 Posts
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Fango
United Kingdom8987 Posts
But the first three years of SC2 were still SC2, you can't really be mad at someone ending up top 5 all time when they were the clear number 1 for 25% of the games history. | ||
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RPR_Tempest
Australia7798 Posts
On February 20 2024 11:54 Liquid`Ret wrote: For the year 2011, he actually got outperformed in GSL by Nestea (who had an amazing year too - he ended up with more GSL points than MVP). Not true, Mvp had more points by quite a large margin. One of NesTea's GSL wins was in 2010, and he lacked the additional final that Mvp had. Even if you completely strike Mvp's World Championship win points from him, he still comes out on top.  2011 GSL PointsOn February 20 2024 11:54 Liquid`Ret wrote: 2011 Blizzcon invitational (He only had to beat nestea and sen) I don't think anyone will deny that this wasn't a particularly tough tournament, it's more impressive for Mvp's innovation of ghost play and subsequently single-handedly getting them nerfed. Also notable for being another decisive win over the #2 greatest player of the time. On February 20 2024 11:54 Liquid`Ret wrote: 2011 WCG (He beat Kas, Bling, Xigua) Again, I don't think anybody will deny the weakness of the field, but this was still a time when the WCG name carried prestige! Also, more importantly than the main tournament was the qualifiers, which Mvp finished 1st in. Again not the craziest thing in the world, but he again proves superiority over literally every other player in Korea. World Cyber Games/2011/Qualifiers/KoreaOn February 20 2024 11:54 Liquid`Ret wrote: 2012 IEM Cologne (Only foreigners, however beating vortix and nerchio is still pretty good.) Hey, he beat NesTea and viOLet too. viOLet was in strong form at the time, and while it wasn't 2011 anymore, NesTea was still good. And I think most people view this tournament as a bonus. Just another trophy for the case, rather than any great accomplishment. But consider the scene at the time, it was the age of broodlord/infestor and Mvp is the ONLY Terran in the tournament to be consistently beating every Zerg in their path. Those foreigner names may not seem like that much in hindsight, but with broodlord/infestor behind them they were capable of beating any Terran in the world. BL/Infestor didn't play around. On February 20 2024 11:54 Liquid`Ret wrote: 2011 GSL world championship. (An invitational where the competition really wasn't very strong - and he lost to Dimaga in the Korea vs the World event.) Now THIS is one I'll fight back on every day of the week. Compared to a Code S, sure, the field isn't great. But look at the run Mvp had. He had a very difficult path to the title. 2-1 HuK (Code S Protoss, Top 5-10 in the world) 3-1 July (Previous season finalist, Top 3 Zerg) 3-1 San (Previous season semifinalist, Top 3 Protoss) 4-2 MarineKing (The 2nd best Terran in the world behind Mvp) The weak players didn't even cross Mvp's path. It was tough enough that it could have been a Code S, minus a Ro32 group stage. As for the loss to DIMAGA in the team league, Mvp was never a great team league player, going 10-11 in GSTL all time. But even then, Mvp actually had DIMAGA beat. He had a pretty sizable advantage in a looooooong game on Tal'darim Altar but then there was a disconnect and the game had to be replayed. DIMAGA was the ace player for the world team, so if you accept the disconnect, the series just ends. Nobody wanted it to end like that, as at the end of the day it was a showmatch, and there was enough leeway where DIMAGA could possibly have comeback, however unlikely it was. Then yeah, DIMAGA baneling busted him the next game. I don't really consider it a loss for Mvp given that he actually had DIMAGA beat before the disconnect. | ||
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Die4Ever
United States17729 Posts
On February 20 2024 14:00 RPR_Tempest wrote: Again, I don't think anybody will deny the weakness of the field, but this was still a time when the WCG name carried prestige! Also, more importantly than the main tournament was the qualifiers, which Mvp finished 1st in. Again not the craziest thing in the world, but he again proves superiority over literally every other player in Korea. World Cyber Games/2011/Qualifiers/Koreaha this reminds me of how the WESG Korean qualifiers were the real challenge On February 20 2024 14:00 RPR_Tempest wrote: 2-1 HuK (Code S Protoss, Top 5-10 in the world) 3-1 July (Previous season finalist, Top 3 Zerg) 3-1 San (Previous season semifinalist, Top 3 Protoss) 4-2 MarineKing (The 2nd best Terran in the world behind Mvp) this is actually a really strong list for that time | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10366 Posts
On February 20 2024 14:00 RPR_Tempest wrote: The weak players didn't even cross Mvp's path. It was tough enough that it could have been a Code S, minus a Ro32 group stage. Damn, you're right I didn't remember his opponents being as good as those. Only HuK was weak-ish (I feel top 5-10 is too generous for him), but he indeed was a fair skill for a Ro16 opponent. On February 20 2024 14:00 RPR_Tempest wrote: But even then, Mvp actually had DIMAGA beat. He had a pretty sizable advantage in a looooooong game on Tal'darim Altar but then there was a disconnect and the game had to be replayed. DIMAGA was the ace player for the world team, so if you accept the disconnect, the series just ends. Nobody wanted it to end like that, as at the end of the day it was a showmatch, and there was enough leeway where DIMAGA could possibly have comeback, however unlikely it was. Then yeah, DIMAGA baneling busted him the next game. I don't really consider it a loss for Mvp given that he actually had DIMAGA beat before the disconnect. Dang i had forgotten about that. That was such a sucky time, forget how it was decided but props to MVP for being ok with it (?) and doing the match over. Was cool for Nestea to bring it home for KR in the end though! (Also Whitera beating MC was so hype). Looking back at the player names makes me so nostalgic and sad. I miss the good ole days ;( | ||
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Die4Ever
United States17729 Posts
On February 20 2024 14:11 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Damn, you're right I didn't remember his opponents being as good as those. Only HuK was weak-ish (I feel top 5-10 is too generous for him), but he indeed was a fair skill for a Ro16 opponent. Dang i had forgotten about that. That was such a sucky time, forget how it was decided but props to MVP for being ok with it (?) and doing the match over. Was cool for Nestea to bring it home for KR in the end though! (Also Whitera beating MC was so hype). Looking back at the player names makes me so nostalgic and sad. I miss the good ole days ;( At an MLG Dallas (the one with the Life vs Flash final), when resume from replay was brand new and people didn't really know how to use it, they had to resume Mvp vs MC but they got the players backwards. Mvp got control of MC's army, and MC got control of Mvp's army. You can't just resume from replay again to fix this because they players got vision of their opponent's stuff. Mvp said he saw how much MC had and said he was going to lose anyways, so they didn't need to regame. edit: HuK was pretty damn good at the time, definitely no pushover (top 3 control! /s) | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10366 Posts
On February 20 2024 14:14 Die4Ever wrote: At an MLG Dallas (the one with the Life vs Flash final), when resume from replay was brand new and people didn't really know how to use it, they had to resume Mvp vs MC but they got the players backwards. Mvp got control of MC's army, and MC got control of Mvp's army. You can't just resume from replay again to fix this because they players got vision of their opponent's stuff. Mvp said he saw how much MC had and said he was going to lose anyways, so they didn't need to regame. edit: HuK was pretty damn good at the time, definitely no pushover (top 3 control! /s) Holy crap I don't remember that, that sounds like a nightmare. But glad it worked out and players have integrity to admit defeat! Yeah HuK was definitely one of the strongest foreigners, I always thought he was a bit overrated and was more like Top 20-30 in the world. Also reading "Life vs Flash" is just wild. What a different time that was. | ||
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jy_9876543210
265 Posts
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Blargh
United States2103 Posts
On February 20 2024 11:54 Liquid`Ret wrote: Now of course I think MVP is a great player - and the undisputed best player of wings - although nestea and mc were trailing pretty closely behind.) I may also be biased, because I actually played mvp twice in offline events, and won both times. For some reason going into a game with Mvp really wasn't that scary as it was going into a game with MMA, or MC. He was a very good player but it always felt like there would be chances, even as a foreigner, if you ran into him in these overseas events that he attended such as MLG, or homestory cup. Wow Ret. Nice HUMBLE BRAG. Anyway, I really struggle to put Mvp any higher than this. I think he looked like the best player in the world until he didn't, and from then on became irrelevant. I personally would have Innovation above Mvp, looking and reading through their results again. 2 years of relevance versus 7. But Mvp was one of few players where going into a tournament, he'd be the very clear favorite. Serral is probably the only other person to have that status. | ||
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NoGSLnoGOAT
1 Post
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