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On August 19 2024 18:37 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 16:16 Telephone wrote:On August 18 2024 15:41 Charoisaur wrote:On August 18 2024 13:39 sc2turtlepants wrote:On August 17 2024 18:28 kajtarp wrote:On August 17 2024 17:37 WombaT wrote:
The head-to-head probably is much more even if Maru got to play Serral more when he was more in the ascendancy. When Maru was more in the "ascendancy" he always failed to meet Serral in big international tournaments, because he was knocked down by someone else more often than not. Remember how much people wanted the Serral Maru clash to happen, and how much time needed for the first one to actually happen. And apart from that win on WESG i'm not sure how many times did Maru manage to actually beat him. Everyone remembers Maru beating Serral at WESG, and not the utterly broken unit he used to do it that was subsequently nerfed into oblivion twice and is still a dominating unit in 2 matchups. I think as a Serral fan you really shouldn't start with using balance as an argument, that will never end well for you Btw look at the race representation for the tournaments played with "super broken ravens":  2018 Global StarCraft II League Season 1https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/World_Electronic_Sports_Games_2017 It's totally nuts that Maru was the only Terran that made it to the round of 8 in both of those tournaments, and that he won both. Does anyone know whether there has ever been a premier won by a Zerg where no other zerg was in the quarterfinals? The very first GSL with Fruitdealer winning, DRG's first GSL win in 2012, Rogue GSL 2021 S1, etc.
is that an I am out of examples "etc" or a I am lazy to type more "etc"?
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On August 19 2024 20:54 Argonauta wrote:
is that an I am out of examples "etc" or a I am lazy to type more "etc"?
Could be a "you can look it up yourself on liquipedia" type etc. 
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On August 18 2024 15:41 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2024 13:39 sc2turtlepants wrote:On August 17 2024 18:28 kajtarp wrote:On August 17 2024 17:37 WombaT wrote:
The head-to-head probably is much more even if Maru got to play Serral more when he was more in the ascendancy. When Maru was more in the "ascendancy" he always failed to meet Serral in big international tournaments, because he was knocked down by someone else more often than not. Remember how much people wanted the Serral Maru clash to happen, and how much time needed for the first one to actually happen. And apart from that win on WESG i'm not sure how many times did Maru manage to actually beat him. Everyone remembers Maru beating Serral at WESG, and not the utterly broken unit he used to do it that was subsequently nerfed into oblivion twice and is still a dominating unit in 2 matchups. I think as a Serral fan you really shouldn't start with using balance as an argument, that will never end well for you Btw look at the race representation for the tournaments played with "super broken ravens": 2018 Global StarCraft II League Season 1https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/World_Electronic_Sports_Games_2017
Cherry picking data AND citing WESG to try to prove a point? Thanks for the laugh xD
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On August 19 2024 20:54 Argonauta wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 18:37 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On August 19 2024 16:16 Telephone wrote:On August 18 2024 15:41 Charoisaur wrote:On August 18 2024 13:39 sc2turtlepants wrote:On August 17 2024 18:28 kajtarp wrote:On August 17 2024 17:37 WombaT wrote:
The head-to-head probably is much more even if Maru got to play Serral more when he was more in the ascendancy. When Maru was more in the "ascendancy" he always failed to meet Serral in big international tournaments, because he was knocked down by someone else more often than not. Remember how much people wanted the Serral Maru clash to happen, and how much time needed for the first one to actually happen. And apart from that win on WESG i'm not sure how many times did Maru manage to actually beat him. Everyone remembers Maru beating Serral at WESG, and not the utterly broken unit he used to do it that was subsequently nerfed into oblivion twice and is still a dominating unit in 2 matchups. I think as a Serral fan you really shouldn't start with using balance as an argument, that will never end well for you Btw look at the race representation for the tournaments played with "super broken ravens": 2018 Global StarCraft II League Season 1https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/World_Electronic_Sports_Games_2017 It's totally nuts that Maru was the only Terran that made it to the round of 8 in both of those tournaments, and that he won both. Does anyone know whether there has ever been a premier won by a Zerg where no other zerg was in the quarterfinals? The very first GSL with Fruitdealer winning, DRG's first GSL win in 2012, Rogue GSL 2021 S1, etc. is that an I am out of examples "etc" or a I am lazy to type more "etc"?
I answered the question in good faith with not just 1 example but 3. If he'd like more he can ask for more or look for more himself 
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On August 19 2024 22:31 sc2turtlepants wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2024 15:41 Charoisaur wrote:On August 18 2024 13:39 sc2turtlepants wrote:On August 17 2024 18:28 kajtarp wrote:On August 17 2024 17:37 WombaT wrote:
The head-to-head probably is much more even if Maru got to play Serral more when he was more in the ascendancy. When Maru was more in the "ascendancy" he always failed to meet Serral in big international tournaments, because he was knocked down by someone else more often than not. Remember how much people wanted the Serral Maru clash to happen, and how much time needed for the first one to actually happen. And apart from that win on WESG i'm not sure how many times did Maru manage to actually beat him. Everyone remembers Maru beating Serral at WESG, and not the utterly broken unit he used to do it that was subsequently nerfed into oblivion twice and is still a dominating unit in 2 matchups. I think as a Serral fan you really shouldn't start with using balance as an argument, that will never end well for you Btw look at the race representation for the tournaments played with "super broken ravens": 2018 Global StarCraft II League Season 1https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/World_Electronic_Sports_Games_2017 Cherry picking data AND citing WESG to try to prove a point? Thanks for the laugh xD
it's what this guy does.
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On August 19 2024 22:31 sc2turtlepants wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2024 15:41 Charoisaur wrote:On August 18 2024 13:39 sc2turtlepants wrote:On August 17 2024 18:28 kajtarp wrote:On August 17 2024 17:37 WombaT wrote:
The head-to-head probably is much more even if Maru got to play Serral more when he was more in the ascendancy. When Maru was more in the "ascendancy" he always failed to meet Serral in big international tournaments, because he was knocked down by someone else more often than not. Remember how much people wanted the Serral Maru clash to happen, and how much time needed for the first one to actually happen. And apart from that win on WESG i'm not sure how many times did Maru manage to actually beat him. Everyone remembers Maru beating Serral at WESG, and not the utterly broken unit he used to do it that was subsequently nerfed into oblivion twice and is still a dominating unit in 2 matchups. I think as a Serral fan you really shouldn't start with using balance as an argument, that will never end well for you Btw look at the race representation for the tournaments played with "super broken ravens": 2018 Global StarCraft II League Season 1https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/World_Electronic_Sports_Games_2017 Cherry picking data AND citing WESG to try to prove a point? Thanks for the laugh xD
What cherry-picking? Those are literally the 2 tournaments that led to Ravens being nerfed. You could include IEM Katowice I guess which was the first instance of Mass Ravens being used but terran didn't do much better there either:
IEM Season XII - World Championship
But I guess you just wanted to use a buzzword to try to invalidate the tournaments back then because the results didn't align with your opinion. Quite the fail from you I must say
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Northern Ireland26018 Posts
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On August 20 2024 20:26 WombaT wrote:
Was it a bad change?
Not at all, those Ravens were stupid as fuck.
But that's not the point, he wants to invalidate the WESG results because of this supposed 'imbalance' when terran really wasn't doing that good on the patch.
It's like wanting to invalidate Protoss results in 2012 because of the archon toilet
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On August 20 2024 20:35 Charoisaur wrote:Not at all, those Ravens were stupid as fuck. But that's not the point, he wants to invalidate the WESG results because of this supposed 'imbalance' when terran really wasn't doing that good on the patch. It's like wanting to invalidate Protoss results in 2012 because of the archon toilet
To add to the point, because mass ravens only becomes an issue in late game, Terran had to navigate early and midgame with enough stability to switch to mass starport to start massing ravens and then win with them. All of that in an era where most of games where midgame oriented.
This is why there were not used often (iir was mostly maru using them, mixing them with speed banshees and parade pushes). And although its true that having the "threat" of the endgame ravens can change opponents approach to the game, as I said, most TvZ games were decided and geared towards midgame pushes.
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On August 18 2024 11:25 radracer wrote:
It's also hard to give GOAT to a player that's begun dominating as the game has been in decline. It reminds me a lot of Moon vs Happy in War 3.
This. Not that it's impossible, but it sure requires some nuanced thinking. Much more than in other sports and games that don't have such an anomalous life cycle. The Serral fans who think it's obvious that Serral is the GOAT need to look into how "greatness" is defined in other sports and games. Let's briefly consider some.
If you look at the statistics of Muhammad Ali, he's not even close to being the GOAT (BoxRec, the official boxing ratings site, doesn't even have him in the top 10). But there are very good reasons he will always be "The Greatest" that are worth understanding. He had more impact on the sport and in the world more broadly than any other boxer, and he did what no one thought was possible.
Similarly, Lebron has for some time passed MJ in terms of stats. Why then does MJ remain the GOAT? An NBA pro recently explained: "“The greatest ever is LeBron James, (but) the greatest of all time is Michael Jordan....The difference is stats. When you talk about impact, Michael Jordan. When you talk about stats and numbers, LeBron."
Phil Ivey is probably as much of a consensus GOAT pick in poker as in any other sport or game, and he is not the "best" player, and has not won the most money or WSOP bracelets. Why, then, is he the GOAT? Most would say it's that he's been dominant in all major eras and game and tournament formats, even if he may not be the best in any.
Though I wouldn't agree, a good case can be made for Bobby Fischer as the chess GOAT based on how much more dominant he was than other GOAT candidates, even though he only won one world championship. Kasparov and Carlsen are the other two consensus GOAT candidates, with six and five world championships respectively. But there are at least seven other chess players with more world championships than Bobby Fischer who aren't really in the GOAT convo. It's a good example of the perils of defaulting to "world championship" titles in games that have better markers of greatness.
Who is the GOAT athlete? Perhaps Michael Phelps if you value raw, absolute accomplishments (i.e. number of medals). Perhaps Usain Bolt if you value sheer dominance over his peers. There will be faster to come along, most will not GOAT worthy. Serral's dominance is super impressive, but it's against an aging, slower, thinning competitive pool. Bolt and Phelps remained dominant against an increasingly younger and faster competitive pool (relative to them). Once you understand this concept, you understand why Mvp is more analogous to Phelps and Bolt than Serral in terms of sheer dominance in their era.
A particularly useful GOAT convo for SC2 fans is the debate over whether Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus is the golf GOAT, because a lot of that comes down to how you value the prestige and competitiveness of specific types of tournaments, and whether you value top finishes outside of outright victories.
I continue to think the best analogy to Serral is Babe Ruth. Incredibly dominant during a dramatically and distinctly less competitive period of the game. Babe Ruth wouldn't be my baseball GOAT pick, but he's probably about as consensus of a GOAT pick as Serral is (and for similar reasons).
The point here is not to argue for or against Serral. I think there are good arguments for Serral, Maru, Rogue, and Mvp (and my personal pick would be Rogue).
The point is that those who think it's "obviously" Serral and no one else comes close are suffering from a poverty of perspective. There are some truly undisputed GOATs like Serena Williams. Serral is not one of them.
I get that a lot of SC2 fans don't play or follow any other games or sports and think a GOAT debate can be settled via algorithm. For better or worse, that's just not how the world works...
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On August 23 2024 04:01 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2024 11:25 radracer wrote:
It's also hard to give GOAT to a player that's begun dominating as the game has been in decline. It reminds me a lot of Moon vs Happy in War 3. This. Not that it's impossible, but it sure requires some nuanced thinking. Much more than in other sports and games that don't have such an anomalous life cycle. The Serral fans who think it's obvious that Serral is the GOAT need to look into how "greatness" is defined in other sports and games. Let's briefly consider some. If you look at the statistics of Muhammad Ali, he's not even close to being the GOAT (BoxRec, the official boxing ratings site, doesn't even have him in the top 10). But there are very good reasons he will always be "The Greatest" that are worth understanding. He had more impact on the sport and in the world more broadly than any other boxer, and he did what no one thought was possible. Similarly, Lebron has for some time passed MJ in terms of stats. Why then does MJ remain the GOAT? An NBA pro recently explained: "“The greatest ever is LeBron James, (but) the greatest of all time is Michael Jordan....The difference is stats. When you talk about impact, Michael Jordan. When you talk about stats and numbers, LeBron." Phil Ivey is probably as much of a consensus GOAT pick in poker as in any other sport or game, and he is not the "best" player, and has not won the most money or WSOP bracelets. Why, then, is he the GOAT? Most would say it's that he's been dominant in all major eras and game and tournament formats, even if he may not be the best in any. Though I wouldn't agree, a good case can be made for Bobby Fischer as the chess GOAT based on how much more dominant he was than other GOAT candidates, even though he only won one world championship. Kasparov and Carlsen are the other two consensus GOAT candidates, with six and five world championships respectively. But there are at least seven other chess players with more world championships than Bobby Fischer who aren't really in the GOAT convo. It's a good example of the perils of defaulting to "world championship" titles in games that have better markers of greatness. Who is the GOAT athlete? Perhaps Michael Phelps if you value raw, absolute accomplishments (i.e. number of medals). Perhaps Usain Bolt if you value sheer dominance over his peers. There will be faster to come along, most will not GOAT worthy. Serral's dominance is super impressive, but it's against an aging, slower, thinning competitive pool. Bolt and Phelps remained dominant against an increasingly younger and faster competitive pool (relative to them). Once you understand this concept, you understand why Mvp is more analogous to Phelps and Bolt than Serral in terms of sheer dominance in their era. A particularly useful GOAT convo for SC2 fans is the debate over whether Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus is the golf GOAT, because a lot of that comes down to how you value the prestige and competitiveness of specific types of tournaments, and whether you value top finishes outside of outright victories. I continue to think the best analogy to Serral is Babe Ruth. Incredibly dominant during a dramatically and distinctly less competitive period of the game. Babe Ruth wouldn't be my baseball GOAT pick, but he's probably about as consensus of a GOAT pick as Serral is (and for similar reasons). The point here is not to argue for or against Serral. I think there are good arguments for Serral, Maru, Rogue, and Mvp (and my personal pick would be Rogue). The point is that those who think it's "obviously" Serral and no one else comes close are suffering from a poverty of perspective. There are some truly undisputed GOATs like Serena Williams. Serral is not one of them. I get that a lot of SC2 fans don't play or follow any other games or sports and think a GOAT debate can be settled via algorithm. For better or worse, that's just not how the world works...
Just ask any pro player out there how they feel about Serral's play. No one has had that much respect in SC II for so long.
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Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
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On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Dang! How'd you prove it so convincingly with one devastating stat?!?! Nice! You didn't even need to invent some criteria and an algorithm like some of the others. Impressive!
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On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Ngl this feels made up
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On August 23 2024 04:37 Locutos wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 04:01 rwala wrote:On August 18 2024 11:25 radracer wrote:
It's also hard to give GOAT to a player that's begun dominating as the game has been in decline. It reminds me a lot of Moon vs Happy in War 3. This. Not that it's impossible, but it sure requires some nuanced thinking. Much more than in other sports and games that don't have such an anomalous life cycle. The Serral fans who think it's obvious that Serral is the GOAT need to look into how "greatness" is defined in other sports and games. Let's briefly consider some. If you look at the statistics of Muhammad Ali, he's not even close to being the GOAT (BoxRec, the official boxing ratings site, doesn't even have him in the top 10). But there are very good reasons he will always be "The Greatest" that are worth understanding. He had more impact on the sport and in the world more broadly than any other boxer, and he did what no one thought was possible. Similarly, Lebron has for some time passed MJ in terms of stats. Why then does MJ remain the GOAT? An NBA pro recently explained: "“The greatest ever is LeBron James, (but) the greatest of all time is Michael Jordan....The difference is stats. When you talk about impact, Michael Jordan. When you talk about stats and numbers, LeBron." Phil Ivey is probably as much of a consensus GOAT pick in poker as in any other sport or game, and he is not the "best" player, and has not won the most money or WSOP bracelets. Why, then, is he the GOAT? Most would say it's that he's been dominant in all major eras and game and tournament formats, even if he may not be the best in any. Though I wouldn't agree, a good case can be made for Bobby Fischer as the chess GOAT based on how much more dominant he was than other GOAT candidates, even though he only won one world championship. Kasparov and Carlsen are the other two consensus GOAT candidates, with six and five world championships respectively. But there are at least seven other chess players with more world championships than Bobby Fischer who aren't really in the GOAT convo. It's a good example of the perils of defaulting to "world championship" titles in games that have better markers of greatness. Who is the GOAT athlete? Perhaps Michael Phelps if you value raw, absolute accomplishments (i.e. number of medals). Perhaps Usain Bolt if you value sheer dominance over his peers. There will be faster to come along, most will not GOAT worthy. Serral's dominance is super impressive, but it's against an aging, slower, thinning competitive pool. Bolt and Phelps remained dominant against an increasingly younger and faster competitive pool (relative to them). Once you understand this concept, you understand why Mvp is more analogous to Phelps and Bolt than Serral in terms of sheer dominance in their era. A particularly useful GOAT convo for SC2 fans is the debate over whether Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus is the golf GOAT, because a lot of that comes down to how you value the prestige and competitiveness of specific types of tournaments, and whether you value top finishes outside of outright victories. I continue to think the best analogy to Serral is Babe Ruth. Incredibly dominant during a dramatically and distinctly less competitive period of the game. Babe Ruth wouldn't be my baseball GOAT pick, but he's probably about as consensus of a GOAT pick as Serral is (and for similar reasons). The point here is not to argue for or against Serral. I think there are good arguments for Serral, Maru, Rogue, and Mvp (and my personal pick would be Rogue). The point is that those who think it's "obviously" Serral and no one else comes close are suffering from a poverty of perspective. There are some truly undisputed GOATs like Serena Williams. Serral is not one of them. I get that a lot of SC2 fans don't play or follow any other games or sports and think a GOAT debate can be settled via algorithm. For better or worse, that's just not how the world works... Just ask any pro player out there how they feel about Serral's play. No one has had that much respect in SC II for so long.
To add to that ask any pro or casters about the first few years of sc2. Most say the skill level was low. The famous artosis comment that any diamond league player in LOTV can win WOL gsl
Even during the so call “golden era” 2015-2016. It was hands down the most competitive era but definitely not the most skilled. Any current high master player would have destroyed and won everything in HOTS
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On August 23 2024 05:59 Blitzball04 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 04:37 Locutos wrote:On August 23 2024 04:01 rwala wrote:On August 18 2024 11:25 radracer wrote:
It's also hard to give GOAT to a player that's begun dominating as the game has been in decline. It reminds me a lot of Moon vs Happy in War 3. This. Not that it's impossible, but it sure requires some nuanced thinking. Much more than in other sports and games that don't have such an anomalous life cycle. The Serral fans who think it's obvious that Serral is the GOAT need to look into how "greatness" is defined in other sports and games. Let's briefly consider some. If you look at the statistics of Muhammad Ali, he's not even close to being the GOAT (BoxRec, the official boxing ratings site, doesn't even have him in the top 10). But there are very good reasons he will always be "The Greatest" that are worth understanding. He had more impact on the sport and in the world more broadly than any other boxer, and he did what no one thought was possible. Similarly, Lebron has for some time passed MJ in terms of stats. Why then does MJ remain the GOAT? An NBA pro recently explained: "“The greatest ever is LeBron James, (but) the greatest of all time is Michael Jordan....The difference is stats. When you talk about impact, Michael Jordan. When you talk about stats and numbers, LeBron." Phil Ivey is probably as much of a consensus GOAT pick in poker as in any other sport or game, and he is not the "best" player, and has not won the most money or WSOP bracelets. Why, then, is he the GOAT? Most would say it's that he's been dominant in all major eras and game and tournament formats, even if he may not be the best in any. Though I wouldn't agree, a good case can be made for Bobby Fischer as the chess GOAT based on how much more dominant he was than other GOAT candidates, even though he only won one world championship. Kasparov and Carlsen are the other two consensus GOAT candidates, with six and five world championships respectively. But there are at least seven other chess players with more world championships than Bobby Fischer who aren't really in the GOAT convo. It's a good example of the perils of defaulting to "world championship" titles in games that have better markers of greatness. Who is the GOAT athlete? Perhaps Michael Phelps if you value raw, absolute accomplishments (i.e. number of medals). Perhaps Usain Bolt if you value sheer dominance over his peers. There will be faster to come along, most will not GOAT worthy. Serral's dominance is super impressive, but it's against an aging, slower, thinning competitive pool. Bolt and Phelps remained dominant against an increasingly younger and faster competitive pool (relative to them). Once you understand this concept, you understand why Mvp is more analogous to Phelps and Bolt than Serral in terms of sheer dominance in their era. A particularly useful GOAT convo for SC2 fans is the debate over whether Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus is the golf GOAT, because a lot of that comes down to how you value the prestige and competitiveness of specific types of tournaments, and whether you value top finishes outside of outright victories. I continue to think the best analogy to Serral is Babe Ruth. Incredibly dominant during a dramatically and distinctly less competitive period of the game. Babe Ruth wouldn't be my baseball GOAT pick, but he's probably about as consensus of a GOAT pick as Serral is (and for similar reasons). The point here is not to argue for or against Serral. I think there are good arguments for Serral, Maru, Rogue, and Mvp (and my personal pick would be Rogue). The point is that those who think it's "obviously" Serral and no one else comes close are suffering from a poverty of perspective. There are some truly undisputed GOATs like Serena Williams. Serral is not one of them. I get that a lot of SC2 fans don't play or follow any other games or sports and think a GOAT debate can be settled via algorithm. For better or worse, that's just not how the world works... Just ask any pro player out there how they feel about Serral's play. No one has had that much respect in SC II for so long. To add to that ask any pro or casters about the first few years of sc2. Most say the skill level was low. The famous artosis comment that any diamond league player in LOTV can win WOL gsl Even during the so call “golden era” 2015-2016. It was hands down the most competitive era but definitely not the most skilled. Any current high master player would have destroyed and won everything in HOTS
complete bullshit statement. it's a totally different game. There's no hotkey stealing in hots.
koreans already reached extreme high mechanics with what was possible in the game. Even current pros would struggle to win shit in hots.
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On August 23 2024 05:59 Blitzball04 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 04:37 Locutos wrote:On August 23 2024 04:01 rwala wrote:On August 18 2024 11:25 radracer wrote:
It's also hard to give GOAT to a player that's begun dominating as the game has been in decline. It reminds me a lot of Moon vs Happy in War 3. This. Not that it's impossible, but it sure requires some nuanced thinking. Much more than in other sports and games that don't have such an anomalous life cycle. The Serral fans who think it's obvious that Serral is the GOAT need to look into how "greatness" is defined in other sports and games. Let's briefly consider some. If you look at the statistics of Muhammad Ali, he's not even close to being the GOAT (BoxRec, the official boxing ratings site, doesn't even have him in the top 10). But there are very good reasons he will always be "The Greatest" that are worth understanding. He had more impact on the sport and in the world more broadly than any other boxer, and he did what no one thought was possible. Similarly, Lebron has for some time passed MJ in terms of stats. Why then does MJ remain the GOAT? An NBA pro recently explained: "“The greatest ever is LeBron James, (but) the greatest of all time is Michael Jordan....The difference is stats. When you talk about impact, Michael Jordan. When you talk about stats and numbers, LeBron." Phil Ivey is probably as much of a consensus GOAT pick in poker as in any other sport or game, and he is not the "best" player, and has not won the most money or WSOP bracelets. Why, then, is he the GOAT? Most would say it's that he's been dominant in all major eras and game and tournament formats, even if he may not be the best in any. Though I wouldn't agree, a good case can be made for Bobby Fischer as the chess GOAT based on how much more dominant he was than other GOAT candidates, even though he only won one world championship. Kasparov and Carlsen are the other two consensus GOAT candidates, with six and five world championships respectively. But there are at least seven other chess players with more world championships than Bobby Fischer who aren't really in the GOAT convo. It's a good example of the perils of defaulting to "world championship" titles in games that have better markers of greatness. Who is the GOAT athlete? Perhaps Michael Phelps if you value raw, absolute accomplishments (i.e. number of medals). Perhaps Usain Bolt if you value sheer dominance over his peers. There will be faster to come along, most will not GOAT worthy. Serral's dominance is super impressive, but it's against an aging, slower, thinning competitive pool. Bolt and Phelps remained dominant against an increasingly younger and faster competitive pool (relative to them). Once you understand this concept, you understand why Mvp is more analogous to Phelps and Bolt than Serral in terms of sheer dominance in their era. A particularly useful GOAT convo for SC2 fans is the debate over whether Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus is the golf GOAT, because a lot of that comes down to how you value the prestige and competitiveness of specific types of tournaments, and whether you value top finishes outside of outright victories. I continue to think the best analogy to Serral is Babe Ruth. Incredibly dominant during a dramatically and distinctly less competitive period of the game. Babe Ruth wouldn't be my baseball GOAT pick, but he's probably about as consensus of a GOAT pick as Serral is (and for similar reasons). The point here is not to argue for or against Serral. I think there are good arguments for Serral, Maru, Rogue, and Mvp (and my personal pick would be Rogue). The point is that those who think it's "obviously" Serral and no one else comes close are suffering from a poverty of perspective. There are some truly undisputed GOATs like Serena Williams. Serral is not one of them. I get that a lot of SC2 fans don't play or follow any other games or sports and think a GOAT debate can be settled via algorithm. For better or worse, that's just not how the world works... Just ask any pro player out there how they feel about Serral's play. No one has had that much respect in SC II for so long. To add to that ask any pro or casters about the first few years of sc2. Most say the skill level was low. The famous artosis comment that any diamond league player in LOTV can win WOL gsl Even during the so call “golden era” 2015-2016. It was hands down the most competitive era but definitely not the most skilled. Any current high master player would have destroyed and won everything in HOTS
This is true for any game or sport as baseline knowledge, training, nutrition, psychology, and physiology improve over time. This is why a guy like Babe Ruth can be both a legendary slugger and ace pitcher in his era when he'd almost certainly be neither in the modern big leagues (definitely he wouldn't be able to pull off both...probably he would have still be a very good slugger). It's somewhat shocking to me that people can't grasp the concept of relative versus absolute skill and how it applies to GOATs. Communities in other sports and games just "get it" in a way that many this community can't (or won't?).
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It feels like the lack of a truly dominant, no-questions-asked GOAT in the "peak era", for lack of a better term, is what makes this argument so interesting/annoying. Part of that is that being the king of a game that's getting frequently patched is inherently harder, but there's also a lot of stuff that can't just be explained by "patch game imba lmao"; Mvp's injuries, Life being a criminal, soO being a choker... Even Inno, the closest thing to a "consensus greatest of all time" pick in 2017, was legendarily inconsistent and never felt like he fully realized his potential. As a result, we're arguing about two or three players who all peaked after the bottom fell out on KeSPA and the new Korean players stopped showing up, but still managed to blow everyone before them out of the water in terms of trophies.
I'm not sure if there's a point here, I still think Serral should've been #1 but SC2 team leagues are a big blind spot for me and that was one of Maru's best areas. Just funny how this stuff works out sometimes.
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