#2: Serral - Greatest Players of All Time - Page 7

On March 19 2024 11:35 tommey.liang wrote:
Surprised at this selection, but I guess it's because Serral didn't truly blossom until 2017 or so, and Maru's been in the scene (consistently at the top) since 2012.

Even pending Serral's military time, give him another two years of this high-level play, he'll be the No. 1 Greatest of All Time.

On March 18 2024 20:29 UnLarva wrote:


Yes, as a Finn, I know. Contrary to Korean military, The Sports Corps of Finnish Defence Forces make it possible for top athletes to continue their sporting careers during their time in the service. Serral isn't first from esports to go to the sports school, but certainly most successful one ever.

Serral's participation to a tourneys during his military duty is possible because those tournament trips are as commands for the athlete. If I recall correctly a total of 100 days can be assigned to such purposes, allowing relatively free preparation, training, and normal tournament routine. However, during his military Serral doesn't represent solely himself, and it is expected that he (or any other sports school G.I.) will do his best in his sports. It is kind of honor to even get to the unit in the first place, and all of accepted people are top Finnish athletes of their respective sports.

It is really interesting to see does the military service impact Serral's performance levels, as would be expected, but narratively this time will be, as far as I know, the first time SC2 player participate to any tournament under command obliged by his military duties.

The best case scenario here is that Joona will go through his service time without any bigger dents to his SC2 career. If anything this can even make him stronger in those aspects of his personality that are already his biggest strengths: Disciplined and systematic training, ability to concentrate, and confidence.

On March 19 2024 11:35 tommey.liang wrote:
Surprised at this selection, but I guess it's because Serral didn't truly blossom until 2017 or so, and Maru's been in the scene (consistently at the top) since 2012.

Even pending Serral's military time, give him another two years of this high-level play, he'll be the No. 1 Greatest of All Time.

On March 22 2024 21:39 hiroshOne wrote:
Great article, bad conclusion. Serral is clearly no 1. I think PiG concluded it the best in his late video on twitch. Saying that Maru is better than Serral is pure "maru's fanboys" things to say.

Also Premobeast sums it too. Nothing to add, mic dropped.

On March 23 2024 03:01 Mmakorea wrote:


To be fair, the majority of the fanbase has Serral as the Goat.

I’ll take the opinion of Pig more seriously than say random forum guys

On March 23 2024 05:13 PremoBeats wrote:


Don't judge people by their supposed prestige. In debates this would be called a fallacy from authority... someone can tell you valid notions without much credentials. Simply look at the argument, not the person who makes it.

On March 25 2024 01:00 ejozl wrote:
If I were to do a GOAT list I would go solely by career, but having lived through the Serral era, I can also see why people would just take the dominance that we've seen and call him GOAT by sheer force. I truly think when we look back at SC2 from SC3, WC4, or whichever game we would be playing at the time, Serral's name would be the first to jump to mind when thinking of SC2. I have never in all my time of watching cyber games seen anything like it. When ppl say that casters jumped too fast on the Serral bandwagon, in a way I think they were right, and it's just hard to appreciate what is happening, since we're still living the moment. If we're being real, we now see, how much time it takes for pros to reach the level that we're at. And how long it took for an absolute talent like PartinG to reach the level of the best, was a good example of that. The kespa switch was the biggest influx of talent, and it shows that it's not the number of players, but the quality of people that matters. HotS was substantially more competitive and was played at a higher level than WoL, even though the number of overall players might've been around the same. And for these kespa players to really reach their peak potential it would need 3-4 years at least. So we're talking 2015-2016 for the peak level, it was somewhat reset by all the changes that came with LotV and the immediate patches that came thereafter, but we saw ByuN, Rogue, Maru and Serral all take the bar to the next level. I agree that the scene started to stagnate and worsen over time, but if we have an opposite graph of level of play increasing, then it can be reasonable to say that the height of play was reached in 2018 at Blizzcon. I would argue Serral is still playing at this level, but most other pros level have decreased since then and so 2018 should be seen as peak SC2. Also if we're all agreeing that the top 3 GOATs are Rogue, Maru and Serral, then it seems to me that the most important period to prove your worth would be the time that these all played, from 2017 and forward.

Life was greater than MVP, and Serral was greater than Maru, or at least this is my belief without having crunched the numbers.

On March 25 2024 02:06 lolfail9001 wrote:

I mean, PartinG became one of the best tosses in the world in 1.5 years within game's release. But yes, it is no accident that top 3 all blossomed in full in 2017-2018 period.

On March 21 2024 01:08 PremoBeats wrote:
I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.

While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me

- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other).
- There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant.
- There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others)
- There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018)
- There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019)
- There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023)
- There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023).
- There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017.
- There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25)
- There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved

Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):

vs Maru: 13:4:2
vs Dark: 8:5:1
vs GuMiho: 10:4:0
vs Solar: 16:7:1
vs Cure: 17:3:0
vs ByuN: 12:5:0
vs Classic: 8:2:0
vs Bunny: 9:2:0
vs stats: 9:4:0
vs soO: 8:4:0
vs Innovation: 16:8:0
vs Rogue: 8:6:0
vs Trap: 14:3:0
vs Zest: 10:5:0

And here the records vs some top world players :

vs Reynor: 31:16:0
vs MaxPax: 18:4:0
vs Heromarine: 26:4:0

That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.

That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else.
Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.

To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.

To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win.
The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements. It took Maru 11 years from 2012 to 2023 to amass 15 Premier Tournament wins in tournaments with top Korean participation. Serral managed to win 16 in 6 years, while Maru had more chances to do so as GSL is 3 times a year AND he was present in nearly all tournaments that Serral was in.

To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.

Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds.
Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats.
BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.

To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”?
He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above).
Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons.
Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to.
That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all.
All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits.
Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?

Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Serral has the consistency, by far the greatest dominance and he outmatches each and every other GOAT contender in a direct comparison plus win record.

Anyways, these are my thoughts.

Share statistics, if you disagree

Edit: Also, Serral went 20:1 in maps in IEM 2024, not 17:1
Edit 2: "And, while we never got an offline final between the two, they did play at GSL vs The World as part of the team competition."
As this article was posted after IEM 2024 where Maru was destroyed by Serral 0:4, this information is also incorrect.

On March 27 2024 20:07 Charoisaur wrote:

yeah because it became easier to dominate the scene due to the decreased competition. During Kespa era this wouldn't be possible

On March 27 2024 20:36 rwala wrote:


Impressive analysis (seriously). And very much reads as something written by someone has has not been following Starcraft very long. I don’t mean that as a dig, it’s just that your analysis treats all eras of SC2 competition as equal. The simple fact is that Serral has not won in the most competitive tournaments and leagues, where hundreds of pro players were competing and even top pros struggled to make it out of the qualifiers and into the group stages. This is not Serral’s fault, and I very much believe if he had competed in that era, he would have been incredibly competitive, probably picked up a few titles along the way. But he didn’t, and alternative hypothetical histories are not so persuasive in these matters. I still think it’s totally legit to call him the GOAT, FWIW, because you can argue that his level of dominance and skill is so high as to compensate for the fact that all his victories came in a less competitive (but still quite competitive) era of SC2. But there is a reason guys like Rain and MVP made it into this top 10 list without having won a “world championship”, while guys like Dark and Reynor who have did not. You can surely disagree with the criteria, but based on the criteria, the picks make sense.