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#1: Maru - Greatest Players of All Time - Page 24

Forum Index > SC2 General
1727 CommentsPost a Reply
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PremoBeats
Profile Joined March 2024
626 Posts
March 21 2024 11:32 GMT
#461

Yeah in this alternate reality Serral would likely be the Goat, but as I already said, being the Goat is not based on hypotheticals.

If Harry Kane had played his entire career at Man City there would also be a 0% chance he'd still be at 0 titles but as it is he has 0 titles and that affects his legacy.


The thing is, that I don't even think that it is adequate to deny Serral the GOAT title even without these alternate reality, as I wrote extensively in my initial post here.

He was/is the most dominant, he won internationally as well as in Korea, he has achieved no one else can (only positive win rates vs top Koreans he played regularly) and the wildest win rates vs Koreans in several given years.

That he never won a GSL is the only thing which prevents him from being the GOAT in a crystal clear sense. But even without it, imo, he is above Maru for the reasons stated in my initial post. The hypothetical only expresses that his GOAT status shouldn't be a question as him winning GSL should be obvious because of the statistics and logic behind it.
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany16095 Posts
March 21 2024 11:42 GMT
#462
On March 21 2024 20:32 PremoBeats wrote:
Show nested quote +

Yeah in this alternate reality Serral would likely be the Goat, but as I already said, being the Goat is not based on hypotheticals.

If Harry Kane had played his entire career at Man City there would also be a 0% chance he'd still be at 0 titles but as it is he has 0 titles and that affects his legacy.


The thing is, that I don't even think that it is adequate to deny Serral the GOAT title even without these alternate reality, as I wrote extensively in my initial post here.

He was/is the most dominant, he won internationally as well as in Korea, he has achieved no one else can (only positive win rates vs top Koreans he played regularly) and the wildest win rates vs Koreans in several given years.

That he never won a GSL is the only thing which prevents him from being the GOAT in a crystal clear sense. But even without it, imo, he is above Maru for the reasons stated in my initial post. The hypothetical only expresses that his GOAT status shouldn't be a question as him winning GSL should be obvious because of the statistics and logic behind it.

Yeah but that are just the metrics you personally deem the most important. Maru has also done lots of things nobody else has done - Consistently a top player since 2013 (includes success during the most competitive era), most Starleagues by far, best single Proleague season, won during times when terran was really weak.
There isn't an undisputed Goat, it all depends on how you rate different achievements against each other
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
PremoBeats
Profile Joined March 2024
626 Posts
March 21 2024 11:42 GMT
#463

Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

That addresses Maru's side, but not the hypothetical of Serral being in GSL at the same time, potentially taking wins of Maru and adding them for himself. I guess we won't find common ground on this GOAT discussion because of different weightings but I sincerely appreciate the effort you guys made to establish this list.

And this quote still needs a correction, as the article "#2: Serral - Greatest Players of All Time " was published on 15th of March and Serral beat Maru 4:0 on 11th of February 2024 at the offline event in Katowice:
"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."

UnLarva
Profile Joined March 2019
458 Posts
March 21 2024 11:52 GMT
#464
@PremoBeats

It was stated by Miz that series of articles timeframe ended BEFORE Katowice 2024, and that was said BEFORE that tournament.

Ofc, one can question immediately the meaning of 'GOAT' in such context, but for editorial reasons I understand why that limitation was made.

Even I can accept Maru as GOAT (albeit grudgingly) BEFORE Katowice 24. But things change as time goes on, second by second for everyone, and thus GOAT discussion never ends. Discussion itself is very interesting, and entertaining.

Let's see how things look like when both Maru and Serral are retired. :D
Part-time Serralogist
SeraphimRD7
Profile Joined March 2024
1 Post
March 21 2024 12:08 GMT
#465
Bro where is Reynor? lool
PremoBeats
Profile Joined March 2024
626 Posts
March 21 2024 12:24 GMT
#466
On March 21 2024 20:52 UnLarva wrote:
@PremoBeats

It was stated by Miz that series of articles timeframe ended BEFORE Katowice 2024, and that was said BEFORE that tournament.

Ofc, one can question immediately the meaning of 'GOAT' in such context, but for editorial reasons I understand why that limitation was made.

Even I can accept Maru as GOAT (albeit grudgingly) BEFORE Katowice 24. But things change as time goes on, second by second for everyone, and thus GOAT discussion never ends. Discussion itself is very interesting, and entertaining.

Let's see how things look like when both Maru and Serral are retired. :D


Ah ok, thanks for pointing that out!
LostUsername100
Profile Joined April 2022
100 Posts
March 21 2024 13:11 GMT
#467
It's a very weird choice to say the least to not edit a few sentences to make your article correct for the date it was released, also ending the "timeframe" of the article right before a world championship is very weird as well.

Poopi
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France13021 Posts
March 21 2024 14:20 GMT
#468
On March 21 2024 20:52 UnLarva wrote:
@PremoBeats

It was stated by Miz that series of articles timeframe ended BEFORE Katowice 2024, and that was said BEFORE that tournament.

Ofc, one can question immediately the meaning of 'GOAT' in such context, but for editorial reasons I understand why that limitation was made.

Even I can accept Maru as GOAT (albeit grudgingly) BEFORE Katowice 24. But things change as time goes on, second by second for everyone, and thus GOAT discussion never ends. Discussion itself is very interesting, and entertaining.

Let's see how things look like when both Maru and Serral are retired. :D

Mizenhauer stated that the result of Katowice 2024 wouldn’t change the rating anyways.
WriterMaru
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10382 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-03-21 14:35:57
March 21 2024 14:22 GMT
#469
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:55 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:49 PremoBeats wrote:

Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won.
Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)


A couple of things:
1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him.
He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.

2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.

3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals.
a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15.
But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds.
b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.

Meaning:
4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.

5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.

So to get to the core of these thoughts...
Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs?
And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?


Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.


Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

I mean Taeja was winning lots of things, he seemed to be doing fine as Terran.
He beat players like Zest, Jaedong, Solar, HerO, Life, MMA, and MC in 3 premieres first half of 2014. 4 of those players made the GOAT SC2 / GOAT HotS lists on TL back then.
I think it's also best to not take balance too much into account. We can't excuse lack of results due to balance.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.

What if we simply now have players who are more dominant in their respective eras than past players in past eras? What if the skill gap between say, Serral and the rest, is higher than Maru/Life/Taeja and the rest back in 2013-2015?
Defining 2 KIL as dominant simply because it's the highest # of KIL someone won during HotS feels unnatural. There isn't necessarily always a dominant player in an era.


Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
UnLarva
Profile Joined March 2019
458 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-03-21 15:03:25
March 21 2024 14:29 GMT
#470
On March 21 2024 23:20 Poopi wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 21 2024 20:52 UnLarva wrote:
@PremoBeats

It was stated by Miz that series of articles timeframe ended BEFORE Katowice 2024, and that was said BEFORE that tournament.

Ofc, one can question immediately the meaning of 'GOAT' in such context, but for editorial reasons I understand why that limitation was made.

Even I can accept Maru as GOAT (albeit grudgingly) BEFORE Katowice 24. But things change as time goes on, second by second for everyone, and thus GOAT discussion never ends. Discussion itself is very interesting, and entertaining.

Let's see how things look like when both Maru and Serral are retired. :D

Mizenhauer stated that the result of Katowice 2024 wouldn’t change the rating anyways.


Ah, ok. I recalled the statement incorrectly then.

So, GOAT is locked forever then with these articles. That's not how definition of GOAT works, sadly. If the World ends tomorrow, then yes maybe, but even then with damn big asterisk added.

For disclaimer (again), I appreciate Miz's work, but I do not agree with the weightings and the ultimate conclusion, and exclusion of Dark, being more angry about that than subjective ordering of all time greats.

Me, you, and everyone else can just pick their own Date-of-Expiration for their own needs in determination for what time exactly is included to 'all time'. Needless to say, we don't have any real meaningful discussion about GOAT then.

A distant future data-archeologist dig a copy of the game from some scrap CD or corroded hard drive 1000 years from now and organize funny little retro-gaming SC2 tourney with his collagues, that then forms a seed for explosive interest to play competitively that amazing master piece of ancient game programming...

You see my point.
Part-time Serralogist
Mizenhauer
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
United States1961 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-03-21 14:42:01
March 21 2024 14:38 GMT
#471
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:55 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:49 PremoBeats wrote:

Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won.
Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)


A couple of things:
1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him.
He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.

2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.

3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals.
a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15.
But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds.
b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.

Meaning:
4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.

5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.

So to get to the core of these thoughts...
Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs?
And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?


Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.


Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.




Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.

And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.

[image loading]

[image loading]
┗|∵|┓Second Place in LB 28, Third Place in LB 29 and Destined to Be a Kong
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany16095 Posts
March 21 2024 14:41 GMT
#472
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:55 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:49 PremoBeats wrote:

Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won.
Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)


A couple of things:
1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him.
He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.

2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.

3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals.
a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15.
But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds.
b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.

Meaning:
4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.

5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.

So to get to the core of these thoughts...
Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs?
And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?


Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.


Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.




What if we simply now have players who are more dominant in their respective eras than past players in past eras? What if the skill gap between say, Serral and the rest, is higher than Maru/Life/Taeja and the rest back in 2013-2015?
Defining 2 KIL as dominant simply because it's the highest # of KIL someone won during HotS feels unnatural. There isn't necessarily always a dominant player in an era.



That's actually a fact but it doesn't work in favor of this era. The skill gap is higher because lots of top competitors had to leave and thus there are fewer championship contenders left. Obviously it's easier to be dominant in a scene with 30 full time players and 5 championship contenders than in a scene with 150 full time players and 12+ championship contenders
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
imData
Profile Joined February 2013
France32 Posts
March 21 2024 15:59 GMT
#473
On March 21 2024 23:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:55 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:49 PremoBeats wrote:

Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won.
Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)


A couple of things:
1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him.
He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.

2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.

3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals.
a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15.
But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds.
b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.

Meaning:
4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.

5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.

So to get to the core of these thoughts...
Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs?
And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?


Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.


Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.




Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.

And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.

[image loading]

[image loading]

Just look at Maru's GSL victory, it was the exact same "ridiculous balance". The only difference was that instead of having 60% of Protoss, they were 60% of Terrans.

Maru started winning when the GSL had already lost its meaning of best league in the world and when the winner was basically the best TvT player.

Saying Serral is not the GOAT because he has never competed in the GSL (even though everytime he went to Korea he just crushed the competition) is completely delusional.

Maru is fighting over 2nd place with Rogue (and he's not the one winning) overall Rogue has a better career than Maru whose only achievement is winning a tier-2 tournament multiple times (yes, GSL is tier 2 after 2016, the Blizzcon/IEM/DH are tier 1).
Moonerz
Profile Joined March 2014
United States467 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-03-21 16:06:51
March 21 2024 16:06 GMT
#474
On March 21 2024 23:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:55 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:49 PremoBeats wrote:

Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won.
Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)


A couple of things:
1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him.
He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.

2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.

3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals.
a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15.
But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds.
b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.

Meaning:
4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.

5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.

So to get to the core of these thoughts...
Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs?
And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?


Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.


Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.




Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.

And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.

[image loading]

[image loading]


Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.


Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
Mizenhauer
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
United States1961 Posts
March 21 2024 16:22 GMT
#475
On March 22 2024 01:06 Moonerz wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 21 2024 23:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:55 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:49 PremoBeats wrote:

Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won.
Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)


A couple of things:
1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him.
He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.

2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.

3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals.
a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15.
But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds.
b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.

Meaning:
4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.

5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.

So to get to the core of these thoughts...
Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs?
And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?


Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.


Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.




Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.

And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.

[image loading]

[image loading]


Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.


Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol


They called it PvProleague for a reason.
┗|∵|┓Second Place in LB 28, Third Place in LB 29 and Destined to Be a Kong
imData
Profile Joined February 2013
France32 Posts
March 21 2024 16:35 GMT
#476
On March 22 2024 01:22 Mizenhauer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 22 2024 01:06 Moonerz wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:55 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:49 PremoBeats wrote:
[quote]

A couple of things:
1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him.
He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.

2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.

3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals.
a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15.
But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds.
b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.

Meaning:
4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.

5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.

So to get to the core of these thoughts...
Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs?
And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?


Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.


Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.




Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.

And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.

[image loading]

[image loading]


Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.


Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol


They called it PvProleague for a reason.

We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Argonauta
Profile Joined July 2016
Spain4967 Posts
March 21 2024 16:37 GMT
#477
On March 22 2024 01:35 imData wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 22 2024 01:22 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 22 2024 01:06 Moonerz wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:55 Mizenhauer wrote:
[quote]

Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.


Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.




Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.

And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.

[image loading]

[image loading]


Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.


Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol


They called it PvProleague for a reason.

We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.


The reason is Maru
Rogue | Maru | Scarlett | Trap
TL+ Member
Poopi
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France13021 Posts
March 21 2024 16:53 GMT
#478
On March 22 2024 01:35 imData wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 22 2024 01:22 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 22 2024 01:06 Moonerz wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 18:55 Mizenhauer wrote:
[quote]

Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.


Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.




Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.

And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.

[image loading]

[image loading]


Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.


Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol


They called it PvProleague for a reason.

We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.

Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
WriterMaru
imData
Profile Joined February 2013
France32 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-03-21 20:47:46
March 21 2024 17:51 GMT
#479
On March 22 2024 01:53 Poopi wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 22 2024 01:35 imData wrote:
On March 22 2024 01:22 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 22 2024 01:06 Moonerz wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
[quote]

Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.

Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.


Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.




Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.

And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.

[image loading]

[image loading]


Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.


Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol


They called it PvProleague for a reason.

We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.

Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform

I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.

Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.

(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).

[image loading]


[image loading]
Argonauta
Profile Joined July 2016
Spain4967 Posts
March 21 2024 18:03 GMT
#480
On March 22 2024 02:51 imData wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 22 2024 01:53 Poopi wrote:
On March 22 2024 01:35 imData wrote:
On March 22 2024 01:22 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 22 2024 01:06 Moonerz wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:31 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 19:18 Mizenhauer wrote:
[quote]

Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.

To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.

But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.



Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.

This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.

I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.


"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."

Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.

"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."

Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.




Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.

And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.

[image loading]

[image loading]


Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.


Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol


They called it PvProleague for a reason.

We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.

Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform

I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.

Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.

(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).

[image loading]


[image loading]


Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
Rogue | Maru | Scarlett | Trap
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