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France13004 Posts
On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral...
I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL.
soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement
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On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement
Not even addressing the ridiculous mention of a bo1 (Zhuge took a map from Serral and Lambo in the same summer with that strat btw), this is such an insane statement that not even the infamous ZParcraft 2 article can contest it in terran delusions. With all due respect if i wrote such blatant whine it'd be straight in the balance whine ban dumpster with me.
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On February 21 2024 00:45 Luolis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement Not even addressing the ridiculous mention of a bo1 (Zhuge took a map from Serral and Lambo in the same summer with that strat btw), this is such an insane statement that not even the infamous ZParcraft 2 article can contest it in terran delusions. With all due respect if i wrote such blatant whine it'd be straight in the balance whine ban dumpster with me.
It's okay he's a writer now, the 20+ bans for balance whine are long behind him 
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MVP's reign was during the peak of GomTvT times, 55% of semi finalists in 2011 were terran. So what? He still was the best. Stop talking shit about some of the best players of all time.
And Messi won because of balance, got it.
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A GOAT list simply wouldn't feel complete without him. I do think Dark > TY, and Dark > Rain. But a top four of MVP, Rogue, Maru, and Serral (there's no longer any doubt in my mind after Katowice) seems fine to me.
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Northern Ireland27207 Posts
On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL. soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement
Along with Rain it’s probably the most debatable shout
It’s like SC2’s ultimate Kong versus, for my money probably the player who was a top, top consistent contender for the longest without winning a huge amount.
I don’t think any direction it goes is especially outrageous. Maru’s fourpeat is one of those achievements that overshadows what came before.
If memory serves, nobody had made more than 2 consecutive finals before soO, and he made 4. Maru doing what he’s done has made soO’s runs less bonkers in retrospect, but at the time they were insane.
Dark may cumulatively have slightly more top 8/4 finishes, and he made more hay in the latter stages of the scene. Equally soO had to go to military not all that long after finally casting off the Kong Kurse and missed that period where Dark and Rogue were hoovering up titles
It’s that close really I wouldn’t even expend the energy of a shoulder shrug if either made top 10 at the other’s expense.
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The only reason anyone would place soO above Dark is if they VASTLY value peak over longevity.
soO had a slightly higher peak than Dark when he had like 4 straight GSL finals appearance and considered undoubtedly the best Zerg in the world. But Dark in 2016 was also considered best Zerg in the world unless my memory is tricking me. He reached the WCS finals during a time Zerg was relatively weak and you regularly see only one or no Zerg in tournament Ro.8. There's really not that big of a difference between their peak.
But Dark just has so much better longevity, he's been like top 3 Zerg and top 5 player in the world for last 8 years, got one world champ and one runner up, have even more 2nd places than soO had at this point, and of course many more first place.
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On February 20 2024 23:49 Balnazza wrote:
Mvp also played in the lowest skill-era of competitive SC2 history - the game was new, no Kespa-Koreans yet and the wonkiest of the 3 addons. Sure, maybe the highest amount of players, but so unrefined compared to today or even HotS.
Yeah, and also he played terran in one of the most terran-favored eras of SC2.
It's amusing that imbalances in favor of terran tend to receive much less attention on TL than other supposed issues. Do you all recall what WoL looked it like? A good part of it consisted of patching out the most hilariously broken terran-favored imbalances and maps, like barracks before depots and steppes of war and and the early temple and queens being garbage and spores requiring evos and so on and so on, making even the slightest misread in ZvT an instant game-winner for the terran.
This is not to discredit MVP, he was a great player of course.
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Northern Ireland27207 Posts
On February 21 2024 01:03 Nasigil wrote:
The only reason anyone would place soO above Dark is if they VASTLY value peak over longevity.
soO had a slightly higher peak than Dark when he had like 4 straight GSL finals appearance and considered undoubtedly the best Zerg in the world. But Dark in 2016 was also considered best Zerg in the world unless my memory is tricking me. He reached the WCS finals during a time Zerg was relatively weak and you regularly see only one or no Zerg in tournament Ro.8. There's really not that big of a difference between their peak.
But Dark just has so much better longevity, he's been like top 3 Zerg and top 5 player in the world for last 8 years, got one world champ and one runner up, have even more 2nd places than soO had at this point, and of course much more first place.
It’s that tricky business of what do you value. And IMO there are many wrong answers, but few right ones.
Is the guy who’s top 4-8 for a decade greater than the bloke who’s the best, or second best for a few?
I think the scene just fell off slightly too early for Dark, + he didn’t capitalise as much as he could have, in combination.
If the scene had remained deeper, Dark’s USP of being just this resolutely consistent presence deep in tournaments counts for slightly more. If he’d made even slightly more hay while the sun shined, he leapfrogs other players. As it is soO has more going for him in a tougher competitive era, even if it’s maybe more streaky, and Rogue took way better advantage of the last 4/5 years in populating his trophy cabinet.
Essentially while this isn’t a widely shared position, I do think Dark’s career > Rogue’s overall. If Dark had even traded Starleagues and WCs with Rogue in this era it wouldn’t even be a question.
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France13004 Posts
On February 21 2024 01:01 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL. soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement Along with Rain it’s probably the most debatable shout It’s like SC2’s ultimate Kong versus, for my money probably the player who was a top, top consistent contender for the longest without winning a huge amount. I don’t think any direction it goes is especially outrageous. Maru’s fourpeat is one of those achievements that overshadows what came before. If memory serves, nobody had made more than 2 consecutive finals before soO, and he made 4. Maru doing what he’s done has made soO’s runs less bonkers in retrospect, but at the time they were insane. Dark may cumulatively have slightly more top 8/4 finishes, and he made more hay in the latter stages of the scene. Equally soO had to go to military not all that long after finally casting off the Kong Kurse and missed that period where Dark and Rogue were hoovering up titles It’s that close really I wouldn’t even expend the energy of a shoulder shrug if either made top 10 at the other’s expense.
I mean with Rain the comparison is more difficult because Rain won stuff, was a pioneer in how to play protoss his way, etc.
As for soO, it’s difficult to see him there but not Dark, who was the best Zerg in the world in 2016 / 2019 and remained a top Zerg for long, while winning important tournaments.
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Wasn't MVP's last GSL win reponsible for the whole infestor BL era when terrans were already struggling but he smh put a win solidfying this state of the game?
Anyway, MVP dominated when the game was the most competitive, balance should not be a really strong argument against that either because it was GomTvT era and he was the one to dominate.
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United States1942 Posts
On February 21 2024 01:16 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 01:01 WombaT wrote:On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL. soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement Along with Rain it’s probably the most debatable shout It’s like SC2’s ultimate Kong versus, for my money probably the player who was a top, top consistent contender for the longest without winning a huge amount. I don’t think any direction it goes is especially outrageous. Maru’s fourpeat is one of those achievements that overshadows what came before. If memory serves, nobody had made more than 2 consecutive finals before soO, and he made 4. Maru doing what he’s done has made soO’s runs less bonkers in retrospect, but at the time they were insane. Dark may cumulatively have slightly more top 8/4 finishes, and he made more hay in the latter stages of the scene. Equally soO had to go to military not all that long after finally casting off the Kong Kurse and missed that period where Dark and Rogue were hoovering up titles It’s that close really I wouldn’t even expend the energy of a shoulder shrug if either made top 10 at the other’s expense. I mean with Rain the comparison is more difficult because Rain won stuff, was a pioneer in how to play protoss his way, etc. As for soO, it’s difficult to see him there but not Dark, who was the best Zerg in the world in 2016 / 2019 and remained a top Zerg for long, while winning important tournaments.
This Dark thing is so disappointing. It's been weeks of the same argument to which I can't respond despite having way more information available to me atm than you guys. Oh well, have to wait for blog stuff and hope people would be up for a good faith discussion.
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On February 21 2024 00:06 Luolis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 00:01 Tsubbi wrote:On February 20 2024 22:59 Kitaen wrote:On February 20 2024 22:49 Tsubbi wrote:
MVP was magical, no matter how you twist it though, his time lasted for no more than 1,5 years.
During this time Code S was basically a monthly event and there were a lot of chances to gather trophies. There were 7 seasons of Code S in 2011. Weighing each on of these as highly as a world championship seems questionable.
The choice of words and hyperboles indicate your fandom and hell why not, you put a lot of work into these articles, they are very enjoyable to read and encourage to look back at these great games which is a lot of fun.
But MVP is ranked too high on this list for sure, I agree with everything Ret said. So? He won THAT many during the most competitive time of the game? If anything that's an argument for MVP and not against. What does longevity accomplish when paired with medicoracy? A good player that had a few runs. That covers a lot of players on this list quite frankly. And most of them were never better than MVP during any of their wins. You might wanna rewatch a few games of 2011 GSL, the level of play is laughable compared to 1-2 years later Oh come on, "most competitive" is obviously comparative to overall skill level. Back in the day just making Code A was an achievement. Nowadays PAPI makes RO32 in tournaments that are considered "premier".
Exactely.
Beeing the best when hardly anyone cares about it is not really an achievement. You've to be good when it matters.
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United States1942 Posts
On February 21 2024 00:51 Durnuu wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 00:45 Luolis wrote:On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement Not even addressing the ridiculous mention of a bo1 (Zhuge took a map from Serral and Lambo in the same summer with that strat btw), this is such an insane statement that not even the infamous ZParcraft 2 article can contest it in terran delusions. With all due respect if i wrote such blatant whine it'd be straight in the balance whine ban dumpster with me. It's okay he's a writer now, the 20+ bans for balance whine are long behind him
Remember when he was perma banned for like 45 minutes?
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On February 21 2024 02:15 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 01:16 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 01:01 WombaT wrote:On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL. soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement Along with Rain it’s probably the most debatable shout It’s like SC2’s ultimate Kong versus, for my money probably the player who was a top, top consistent contender for the longest without winning a huge amount. I don’t think any direction it goes is especially outrageous. Maru’s fourpeat is one of those achievements that overshadows what came before. If memory serves, nobody had made more than 2 consecutive finals before soO, and he made 4. Maru doing what he’s done has made soO’s runs less bonkers in retrospect, but at the time they were insane. Dark may cumulatively have slightly more top 8/4 finishes, and he made more hay in the latter stages of the scene. Equally soO had to go to military not all that long after finally casting off the Kong Kurse and missed that period where Dark and Rogue were hoovering up titles It’s that close really I wouldn’t even expend the energy of a shoulder shrug if either made top 10 at the other’s expense. I mean with Rain the comparison is more difficult because Rain won stuff, was a pioneer in how to play protoss his way, etc. As for soO, it’s difficult to see him there but not Dark, who was the best Zerg in the world in 2016 / 2019 and remained a top Zerg for long, while winning important tournaments. This Dark thing is so disappointing. It's been weeks of the same argument to which I can't respond despite having way more information available to me atm than you guys. Oh well, have to wait for blog stuff and hope people would be up for a good faith discussion.
Looking forward to hearing the rationale. I think Dark benefits a lot from recency bias. Without researching and just off the top of my head he was just starting to breakout around the end of HotS but didn't have "true" success until the scene dwindled a bit. It's far less impressive to win in a scene with less than 32 good players vs when the team houses were in full swing.
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On February 21 2024 01:06 Antithesis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2024 23:49 Balnazza wrote:
Mvp also played in the lowest skill-era of competitive SC2 history - the game was new, no Kespa-Koreans yet and the wonkiest of the 3 addons. Sure, maybe the highest amount of players, but so unrefined compared to today or even HotS. Yeah, and also he played terran in one of the most terran-favored eras of SC2. It's amusing that imbalances in favor of terran tend to receive much less attention on TL than other supposed issues. Do you all recall what WoL looked it like? A good part of it consisted of patching out the most hilariously broken terran-favored imbalances and maps, like barracks before depots and steppes of war and and the early temple and queens being garbage and spores requiring evos and so on and so on, making even the slightest misread in ZvT an instant game-winner for the terran. This is not to discredit MVP, he was a great player of course.
It's because Protoss and Zerg still won quite a bit in early WoL. Unlike the peaks of Zerg imbalance where they were literally the only ones winning anything noteworthy.
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On February 21 2024 02:15 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 01:16 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 01:01 WombaT wrote:On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL. soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement Along with Rain it’s probably the most debatable shout It’s like SC2’s ultimate Kong versus, for my money probably the player who was a top, top consistent contender for the longest without winning a huge amount. I don’t think any direction it goes is especially outrageous. Maru’s fourpeat is one of those achievements that overshadows what came before. If memory serves, nobody had made more than 2 consecutive finals before soO, and he made 4. Maru doing what he’s done has made soO’s runs less bonkers in retrospect, but at the time they were insane. Dark may cumulatively have slightly more top 8/4 finishes, and he made more hay in the latter stages of the scene. Equally soO had to go to military not all that long after finally casting off the Kong Kurse and missed that period where Dark and Rogue were hoovering up titles It’s that close really I wouldn’t even expend the energy of a shoulder shrug if either made top 10 at the other’s expense. I mean with Rain the comparison is more difficult because Rain won stuff, was a pioneer in how to play protoss his way, etc. As for soO, it’s difficult to see him there but not Dark, who was the best Zerg in the world in 2016 / 2019 and remained a top Zerg for long, while winning important tournaments. This Dark thing is so disappointing. It's been weeks of the same argument to which I can't respond despite having way more information available to me atm than you guys. Oh well, have to wait for blog stuff and hope people would be up for a good faith discussion.
There is no reason you can't make a blog post now about Dark, particularly since its a highly debated topic in the community. Everyone would enjoy it. No need to follow self-imposed rules if they don't make sense.
And now would be the time to do it, considering the community is more than happy to continue speculating about the exact order of the top 3 and Dark prior to #3 being published.
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France13004 Posts
On February 21 2024 00:51 Durnuu wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 00:45 Luolis wrote:On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement Not even addressing the ridiculous mention of a bo1 (Zhuge took a map from Serral and Lambo in the same summer with that strat btw), this is such an insane statement that not even the infamous ZParcraft 2 article can contest it in terran delusions. With all due respect if i wrote such blatant whine it'd be straight in the balance whine ban dumpster with me. It's okay he's a writer now, the 20+ bans for balance whine are long behind him
I might have been a little bit too passionate about Starcraft 2 in the past
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On February 21 2024 01:01 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 00:26 Poopi wrote:On February 21 2024 00:12 LennX wrote:
Will there be a #0? Im struggling to see Dark being out of the top 10. The top 3 should already be locked in per everyone mentioning Rouge Maru Serral... I doubt it. soO > Dark is the most peculiar thing about this ranking though, because both won their only WC when zerg was absolutely overpowered (2019) while Dark was also doing well in GSL at other times and actually won the thing. He even made top 2 in 2016 in an epic series versus ByuN, and was overall a feared opponent among foreigners and still is despite being far past his prime. Whereas soO lost to Zhugeliang and stuff, and never won a single GSL. soO literally had the game to be completely broken to be able to win a prestigious tournament, similarly to Messi getting a WC handed to him before his retirement Along with Rain it’s probably the most debatable shout It’s like SC2’s ultimate Kong versus, for my money probably the player who was a top, top consistent contender for the longest without winning a huge amount. I don’t think any direction it goes is especially outrageous. Maru’s fourpeat is one of those achievements that overshadows what came before. If memory serves, nobody had made more than 2 consecutive finals before soO, and he made 4. Maru doing what he’s done has made soO’s runs less bonkers in retrospect, but at the time they were insane. Dark may cumulatively have slightly more top 8/4 finishes, and he made more hay in the latter stages of the scene. Equally soO had to go to military not all that long after finally casting off the Kong Kurse and missed that period where Dark and Rogue were hoovering up titles It’s that close really I wouldn’t even expend the energy of a shoulder shrug if either made top 10 at the other’s expense.
You can add TY to the list as well. He won his GSL when terran was overpowered
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On February 20 2024 23:49 Balnazza wrote:
I will admit, I forgot Mvp originally and was surprised when people brought him up as #4 instead of Dark. And even though I was against it, I can see his merits and reasons to be included in the Top 10.
No. 4 however just feels way too high. He was dominant for a very short amount of time, with an inflated number of GSL wins.
Like Maru, Mvp has won three GSLs in a year (I think...does that GSL Championship thingy count as a GSL?). But Maru won 3 out of 3, while Mvp won 3 out of 11. I know it is a projection, but imagine 2018 still had so many GSLs and Maru would have won like 7 out of 11...would anyone even talk about Mvp at this point?
Mvp also played in the lowest skill-era of competitive SC2 history - the game was new, no Kespa-Koreans yet and the wonkiest of the 3 addons. Sure, maybe the highest amount of players, but so unrefined compared to today or even HotS. I don't want to say it was "easy" to be as dominant as he was, of course not. But in my opinion it doesn't hold up to stronger players in later years.
Lastly, I don't think we can really ignore how Mvp left the scene. His last professional match was a 2-3 vs. MorroW, after that he only played a couple of qualifiers. Of course that might be him still trying against his injury, but it doesn't particularly scream "Vice-Vice-Vice-GOAT!" either.
Yes, at the time the game was still getting figured out, there was a lot of balancing which players constantly needed to adapt to and here's the thing - it was the same for everyone, nobody had a headstart or anything, so saying that the skill level wasn't as good and therefore concluding Mvp had an easier time doesn't really make sense to me, as you have to put what he did into historical context.
What people tend to forget is that we had an insane number of tournaments and leagues back then, the game was much more popular. A much higher cadence of specifically GSL (and GSTL) also meant less preparation time per match played and it comes with a higher overall volatility due to the game still being subject to getting further figured out by players/new strategies being discovered and the need of patches/balance adjustments in response to that, which, as we know, affected the outcome of quite a few tournaments over the game's lifecycle - and not always in favor of Terran. Pair this with the team house training regiments of the time this probably puts a higher strain on professional pro players, which can also contribute to higher fluctuation in performance and this, again, also is something Mvp was affected in the same way as the rest of the playing field.
We also should not forget here that Maru's G5L trophy was originally created for Mvp 10 years prior, which is insane to think about as nobody else even came close for a decade.
Regarding his twilight years and how he went out I also fail to see how this is used as an argument against him, just the opposite, he really tried despite his worsening condition and you could definitely see that he just couldn't pull off the mechanics anymore and thus had to rely on more gimmicky ways to take games off of opponents, which IMO really shows what a phenomenal understanding Mvp had of the game and is just further testament to his skill. Why he retired the way he did? I don't know and while I'm always sad when players just silently fade away without having a chance to wave a proper goodbye this in no way tarnishes their accolades IMO.
Mvp was essentially the closest thing to a Bonjwa we got at the time in a game that was brutally volatile during this early era, which was loaded with the most competition the game has ever seen.
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EPT
