On May 10 2024 11:02 goldensail wrote: Btw since many of the latest posts are about "talent" let me add to this topic.
I think most of us can agree that talent is an illusive, subjective concept. For me, it comes down to "Who took this game to new heights? Who did things I've never seen before? Who had the wow factor?".
I won't go into who is "most" talented, or whether Maru is as talented as Flash, but I do think it'll be difficult to argue in good faith that Maru didn't shine in these criteria. Maru showed us since his early years that Terran could be played like Zerg, that it can be an offensive race, that it's possible to mirco units like THAT, that you can claw back against top tier competitors when you're down 60 supply...and he has pretty consistently exceled through the darkest days for Terran.
Does Serral give me that feeling? No. Serral optimizes his builds and is a very balanced player, but he follows a script and he executes very well.
I know if you're a Serral fan you probably find his play the most exciting ever, so I'm merely presenting my case - I'm too old to think I can convince others with different opinion.
I'll leave you with one question: in soccer I've heard people call Messi the artist for his brilliance and Ronaldo the engineer for his efficiency (no offense to Ronaldo, as I'm actually a bigger fan of the latter) - between Maru and Serral, who would be the artist, and who the engineer?
It’s not a bad comparison but ultimately they have a didn’t set of tools to play with. Flashy micro feats impress many more than basically the entirety of the other skills needed in the game, hence why I think this perception that Terran is the most demanding race on skill is so pervasive (and totally not annoying ).
The Messi artist/Ronaldo engineer comparison exists because folks think Messi was just prenaturally gifted and Ronaldo had to work his ass off. I don’t think that perception is particularly accurate but if we were to go with it as a comparison, if anything Serral is the Messi, not Maru. As the bloke who got to that level doing his own thing rather than hothoused via team houses
The difficulty of Terran in terms of mechanics is not micro per se, but rather the macro is more demanding in terms of inputs / attention than the other races, yet the micro is still demanding, so it’s very difficult to do properly especially when playing bio.
It has been debated ad nauseam though, but it doesn’t really matter in the goat debate which race has been more difficult over the years / patches
On March 19 2024 09:12 Kitai wrote: Ok, someone's gotta do it at this point. The list is done, everyone has read the articles and listened to the forum arguments. So here we go!
Because I don't want to keep posting GOAT stuff in the GSL thread, just going to point out that it's pretty clear the majority of the community thinks Serral is the GOAT. Which is completely fine because it's a legitimate take. And although this poll says 60%, I think it's pretty safe to say that we at tl.net are going to skew more korean-focused than the community overall. And this poll was in the middle of the thread, so like the real die-hard tl.neters. The real percentage is likely at least 70% and possibly significantly higher.
I mean this was a controversial post for a reason. And Miz himself said he kept going back and forth on it.
Separately, do we know what koreans think on the GOAT debate? Does it tend to roughly match the foreign community, are they more Maru focused, or even something else?
Miz, I remember you said you asked soO about who the GOAT was - what did he say? Sorry if you posted it before it's a long thread now.
Afaik soO thought it was Serral. Some users pointed out that soO only met Serral the final product while he played Maru for basically their entire common sc2 career.
On March 19 2024 09:12 Kitai wrote: Ok, someone's gotta do it at this point. The list is done, everyone has read the articles and listened to the forum arguments. So here we go!
Because I don't want to keep posting GOAT stuff in the GSL thread, just going to point out that it's pretty clear the majority of the community thinks Serral is the GOAT. Which is completely fine because it's a legitimate take. And although this poll says 60%, I think it's pretty safe to say that we at tl.net are going to skew more korean-focused than the community overall. And this poll was in the middle of the thread, so like the real die-hard tl.neters. The real percentage is likely at least 70% and possibly significantly higher.
I mean this was a controversial post for a reason. And Miz himself said he kept going back and forth on it.
Separately, do we know what koreans think on the GOAT debate? Does it tend to roughly match the foreign community, are they more Maru focused, or even something else?
Miz, I remember you said you asked soO about who the GOAT was - what did he say? Sorry if you posted it before it's a long thread now.
I remember at gamers8 they had a section where they asked the players who they think the Goat is and while the foreigners all said Serral the koreans were pretty much 50/50 between Serral and Maru.
Also to your point that the tl community is more korean favored I might add that the general foreign community is definitely more likely to be foreigner biased due to casters always hyping them up etc. Also not really an objective take. It's like asking portuguese people who they think the football Goat is and taking that as proof CR7 is above Messi
On May 11 2024 14:43 Poopi wrote: Afaik soO thought it was Serral. Some users pointed out that soO only met Serral the final product while he played Maru for basically their entire common sc2 career.
Yeah that probably played a role in his assessment. Judging only results from 2018 on he's 1-10 in series against Maru (the win being a bo1 in teamleague) and 3-8 vs Serral (2 of those wins are bo1s in teamleagues). But he was doing pretty well against Maru before that
On March 19 2024 09:12 Kitai wrote: Ok, someone's gotta do it at this point. The list is done, everyone has read the articles and listened to the forum arguments. So here we go!
Because I don't want to keep posting GOAT stuff in the GSL thread, just going to point out that it's pretty clear the majority of the community thinks Serral is the GOAT. Which is completely fine because it's a legitimate take. And although this poll says 60%, I think it's pretty safe to say that we at tl.net are going to skew more korean-focused than the community overall. And this poll was in the middle of the thread, so like the real die-hard tl.neters. The real percentage is likely at least 70% and possibly significantly higher.
I mean this was a controversial post for a reason. And Miz himself said he kept going back and forth on it.
Separately, do we know what koreans think on the GOAT debate? Does it tend to roughly match the foreign community, are they more Maru focused, or even something else?
Miz, I remember you said you asked soO about who the GOAT was - what did he say? Sorry if you posted it before it's a long thread now.
Interesting. I wish there were an official poll like this so we can observe how the community sentiment has evolved over the history of the game.
I do want to point out that this measures sentiment, which is heavily influenced by recent results, and in turn, game balance.
I also find it interesting that Rogue receives so few votes. In a post match interview of Maru ('22 ish), PiG provocatively asked "recently Rogue said he's the GOAT, what do you think?" to which Maru answered "yeah he's still the GOAT since he won so many titles". Of course Maru might be a bit biased since they were teammates at Jin Air and Maru had always held Rogue in high regard. Now it seems people have all but forgotten him.
Edit: I forgot to mention - this poll is done on an English forum, where I suspect readership is primarily EU/Americas based (i.e. more "foreigners"). Would it generate similar results if the poll had more representation from Korea, China etc.? Also are there more Zergs voting for Serral vs. Terran voting for Maru and vice versa? I don't purport to know the answer but food for thought.
Much of the community was already calling Serral the goat in 2019. He was objectively not the goat at that point. There is a clear bias towards him that continues to be true to this day even though he has a strong argument now. Point being I don't think overall fan sentiment can be taken seriously when it's definitely motivated by him being the first non Korean to become the best in the world along with the way casters used to over hype him.
I’ve personally stuck Serral as mine, but I think this much more enhances his claims than it detracts from Maru’s.
We were wondering what Serral’s less full-time routine would have him playing like and he just shows up and stomps the world’s best PvZer easily, and everyone bar Oliveira who was playing like a madman.
Maru’s been a progamer since 2010, which is insane. Is he really at his absolute peak anymore?
It’s just a shame they didn’t get to play for all those years, sure it built the hype up and up but from their early encounters it was way less lopsided and may have been a rivalry to make ones like Taeja/Life look pretty small time
If anything Maru’s gapped the non-Serral field to almost the same degree Serral’s gapped the entire field these past couple of years, which at that stage of his career is bloody remarkable.
A shame this result gets the usual fanboying crowing, I mean Maru has managed to be an S class, championship contender player for literally over a decade straight now, few others even come close even ones high up in the GOAT standings themselves
In fairness, Mizenhauer has admitted that #1 and #2 can go either way. W/e it's fine. Just an article. It stirred quite a debate. But I believe Serral is unquestionably #1. I also believe that Maru is mentally weak against Serral, more than he is against anyone else.
If people still think Zerg is balanced, I don't know what to say. The Zerg economy was clearly not supposed to work this way. Against what Serral was doing, Terran basically has to commit to an all-in and pray it works, otherwise the swarms will just kill you no matter how good a defensive setup you have, or how good you're at defending.
Also I've always thought Terran lacks effective AOE damage, and nerfing the widow mine in the name of better TvP balance after Kato clearly didn't help.
Look forward to the hate replies but at least tell me where I'm wrong.
On June 03 2024 12:35 goldensail wrote: If people still think Zerg is balanced, I don't know what to say. The Zerg economy was clearly not supposed to work this way. Against what Serral was doing, Terran basically has to commit to an all-in and pray it works, otherwise the swarms will just kill you no matter how good a defensive setup you have, or how good you're at defending.
Also I've always thought Terran lacks effective AOE damage, and nerfing the widow mine in the name of better TvP balance after Kato clearly didn't help.
Look forward to the hate replies but at least tell me where I'm wrong.
"I don't know what to say"--could have stopped there. Here's a clue: Oliveira, an amazing yet far lesser player, managed to take Serral to the brink, while Maru looked even worse than his series at Katowice. No other Zerg is accomplishing anything of note, alongside a rough map pool for Zergs. But. Balance. Clearly the problem.
On June 03 2024 12:35 goldensail wrote: If people still think Zerg is balanced, I don't know what to say. The Zerg economy was clearly not supposed to work this way. Against what Serral was doing, Terran basically has to commit to an all-in and pray it works, otherwise the swarms will just kill you no matter how good a defensive setup you have, or how good you're at defending.
Also I've always thought Terran lacks effective AOE damage, and nerfing the widow mine in the name of better TvP balance after Kato clearly didn't help.
Look forward to the hate replies but at least tell me where I'm wrong.
Yeah gonna disagree with you there. Just coz Maru got wrecked again by the GOAT doesn't mean the matchup is imba. I mean look at Reynor and Dark. They lost. Serral is clearly the best ever.
Game 5 was so close - Oliveira made a few mistakes... if he was in his world championship form he had a great chance to take this. 2-3 loss by that Terran. So 0-4 by Maru is not a Terran issue.
Balance whining based on losing to the GOAT doesn't really prove anything.
On June 03 2024 12:35 goldensail wrote: If people still think Zerg is balanced, I don't know what to say. The Zerg economy was clearly not supposed to work this way. Against what Serral was doing, Terran basically has to commit to an all-in and pray it works, otherwise the swarms will just kill you no matter how good a defensive setup you have, or how good you're at defending.
Also I've always thought Terran lacks effective AOE damage, and nerfing the widow mine in the name of better TvP balance after Kato clearly didn't help.
Look forward to the hate replies but at least tell me where I'm wrong.
"I don't know what to say"--could have stopped there. Here's a clue: Oliveira, an amazing yet far lesser player, managed to take Serral to the brink, while Maru looked even worse than his series at Katowice. No other Zerg is accomplishing anything of note, alongside a rough map pool for Zergs. But. Balance. Clearly the problem.
EPT
