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That's really cool, the BTS interview with Rogue. Too bad that one didn't air for the broadcast (?)
Could be politeness though ofc, but he probably means it.
There was a time he overtook Maru just barely as the GOAT, when he caught up in Code S wins while also having 3 WCs. But it's hard to justify that narrow lead now that a full 4 more years have progressed in SC2 history and Serral moves further and further ahead of Maru.
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On July 28 2025 01:23 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2025 18:20 PremoBeats wrote:On July 27 2025 16:53 ZombieGrub wrote:On July 27 2025 16:26 dedede wrote:Oh yeah because it just doesn’t make sense to some people call someone the greatest of all time for dominating during a weak era (2022–2025), and just makes sense to the other people believe being the best right now with being the greatest of all time or buy so deeply into the ESL narrative as if they’re the ones officially crowning the GOAT. Btw, I watch tennis, soccer, and basketball, and I’ve never seen any tournament organizer itself push the GOAT narrative this hard as if they are the official authority. I’ve also never seen a group of hosts or casters show such obvious bias in any other sport, lol. I guess as the SC2 scene declines, neither the players nor the casters/hosts are really ‘pros’ anymore, so they don’t feel the need to act professional  You debate on-topic until you decide to be either straight-up aggressive or passive-aggressive (a smiley? Really?) to casters rather than bring up an actual interesting conversation in good faith on whether the GOAT subject *is* professional or not. For my take on it, esports casting and production is just different. There's lots of things that esports productions would not do compared to traditional productions, and I love that. I personally don't use the GOAT terminology much at all but I've also never looked at my co-casters (or the production with the graphics, social media, etc) as unprofessional for bringing it into the discussion. If there are others who have such strong opinions, it hasn't reached anyone. So, it seems the community is generally okay with it and doesn't feel the need to take potshots. I'll add a more on-topic thing here which is that I do think Serral is the greatest of all time, but I understand the Maru argument. At this point most (all?) players even point to Serral. I also don't think it's that serious and it does breed one too many jerks with how serious some people do take it. Fun BTS stuff from EWC: In an interview with Rogue, it was asked who he thought was GOAT and maybe, is it him? He said if Serral wins, Serral is. If Maru wins, Maru is. Rogue said he should not be in the conversation. Could he have said so out of politeness? What was the context of the conversation? To me, this year's EWC wasn't even necessary to determine the GOAT. Anyway, thanks for sharing... the quote should carry extra weight for dedede, who seems to like Rogue's quotes as seen in other threads :D On July 27 2025 01:59 Mizenhauer wrote:On July 27 2025 01:06 PremoBeats wrote:
My biggest contention is the notion that the general format was the same.
I'd say a Bo5 in the Challenge of SSL 2015 (Ro32) is definitely easier than a Ro32 group stage of GSL, due to its unforgiving nature.
Double elimination post 2015 was a difficulty downgrade as essentially every player in the knockout stage has 2 lives (except the upper bracket finalist). Depending on the format this means a 3-6% win rate boost.
2017 with the round robin change and the potential seeding into the finals feels further toned down in comparison to GSL.
2017 SSL was a big issue for me when it came to tracking win rates. I give the winner's as much credit as if they won Code S, but I set the nine matches from the round robin aside. I made note of them, but those numbers were excluded from my calculation. Winning GSL required seven wins back then, but you could win the event with as many as four match losses. I don't think there's a huge difference between going 8-3 to win SSL (a 6-3 record that finishes third and the aforementioned record. Help me out here.. you were able to lose 1 match per group stage, otherwise you are out. After that it is a single elimination knockout bracket... where did I miss the other two possible match losses when winning GSL? What do you think about a tournament formula that encapsulates balance through map win statistics, needed wins, amount of potential losses, amount of group stages and single versus double elimination? These would be pretty hard facts that could be measured. Round robins would be a little bit harder to evaluate but I think some kind of factor could be calculated through a probabilistic model against 1 or 2 group stage tournament with quarters, semis and finals. Some kind of difficulty in terms of the participated players would be needed as well. Perhaps a quota of the player's average rank of the Ro8 in this tournament versus the 6 tournaments before and after it? Such a method should work pretty well until 2022. GSL 2015 had an average of 13,88... in 2022 it is 15,10 and 14,60. In 2023 the player decline affects the averages too much, where we have averages of under 10. But before that, this method should work quite well. On July 27 2025 02:24 dedede wrote:On July 27 2025 00:26 onPHYRE wrote:
You guys realize Maru and Serral played in the same era right? Maru winning some random tournament a few years before Serral started dominating world SC2 does not mean they did not have 95-97% of their accomplishments at the same time. You can’t use it to detract from Serral without also having it detract from Maru. And no one prior to them (or since) should even be in the GOAT discussion. Same era? Where was serral when Maru won OSL in 2013 and dominating proleague? That “a few years ago” matters the most as it’s stated many times that the scene was at its most competitive in Kespa era, and Maru’s OSL and SSL(random tournaments? It’s literally star league and go check the bracket to see who’s playing in it) and his dominating proleague performance (if you don’t know how important proleague was in kespa era then no need to discuss more) in prime years are the best arguments for his GOAT claims. And no one prior to them (or since) should even be in the GOAT discussion Acting like the game only started in 2018 just because Serral achieved nothing from 2010–2017 is classic. The GOAT discussion doesn’t center around Serral, it’s about comparing every player’s full resume to determine why they are the greatest of ALL TIME. MVP, Rain, and sOs are all on that list because of their legendary accomplishments in WoL and HotS, and Innovations and Maru’s HotS performance contribute to their resume too. Even by your own logic, the debate revolves around Serral, yet from 2018–2022 Maru’s record (4 Code S titles + 1WESG) still outweighs 1Blizzcon. It wasn’t until after 2022 that Serral surpassed Maru in achievements and head-to-head. But as the scene keeps shrinking year after year, 2022–2025 is clearly weaker and less competitive compared to 2018–2022, even if Serral’s 2 IEM wins and 1 EWC are solid titles. The it comes to the logical question, if the scene remains or keeps shrinking and someone started to win 5 EWC in a row, is he the goat? If you think serral is the goat now because he has more wc titles, then that 5 EWC champion should be the goat. For me, I won’t call anyone dominating a weak era the greatest of all time, even it’s 10 EWC titles. And On July 27 2025 09:14 Charoisaur wrote:On July 27 2025 08:24 Balnazza wrote:This is something worthy discussed. For me, never, no matter how many years Happy dominates, since there is no real "pro" scene for WC3, I just can't based on my standard. This part I need to emphasize that, there is no issue if you think Happy can be the GOAT under this situation because people have different standards about "professional scene" and "competitiveness". What I can't accept is, disrespecting the prime time in the past, which in WC3 case 2005 to 2010. Moon is the GOAT despite he didn't have a WCG title. I don't want to go into it too much, as it is of course heavily of topic, but I don't think Moons claim on GOATness is as solid/big as people sometimes claim. His results are usually just Korea-based, he never won ESWC, WCG or BlizzCon. I still think he is the GOAT, just because of his aura, his crazyness, his dominance at times and his tremendous success in Teamleagues, but there is a reason why even in 2007 and '08 we heavily discussed who is better, Grubby or Moon. And to be honest: If chinese players could have traveled more in these times, I'm almost sure Sky would be considered the GOAT, as much as a passionate Grubby and 4Kings-fan I wouldn't want that. That’s a fair point but Maru wasn’t the absolute #1, but he was at least the #2 Terran and roughly top 5 overall during HotS (my list in no particular order: Zest, Innovation, sOs, Maru, Life). That’s far from just “being around.” If you put him in the Top 5 for 2013-2016, that is fair. Though in my mind it would be a clear 5th place with quite the jump to the next four. Though in fairness I don't count the imbecile ever, so I guess Maru is actually 4th? Looking at Proleague specifically, he had the second-most wins in 2015/2016 and the highest win rate in 2016: Did you notice how you changed your stats between the two years? If you picked one, he wouldn't be first in either season. Had you applied winrate for 2015 aswell, he would only be ranked 6th. And if you went with "Record", he would have been 2nd in each year. Not exactly the markings of someone being "nearly unbeatable". He also got Finals MVP, but how much that says in a clean 4-0 sweep... But just like when I had to counter people claiming Serral “dominated” 2018–2021 by listing every GSL, IEM Katowice, and BlizzCon result and explaining how much harder GSL and IEM Katowice were compared to BlizzCon, with Maru taking 4 GSLs and Rogue 2 IEMs in that span while Serral only had 1 BlizzCon. Neither GSL nor Katowice are "harder to win" than BlizzCon. That is debatable at best. Maru couldn't even qualify for two of the four "prime"-BlizzCons. Serral also didn't just win one BlizzCon. He also won multiple DH Masters (the Season Finals that also included the GSL topdogs) and managed to never really bomb out of a tournament, except for Katowice '21. Technically also the Last Chance DH at the end of that year, though he did manage to win the following Katowice, so that's not that impactful. If you claim so heavily on the "the scene declined so much after 2016!" than you have to play by its rules. GSL got less important with each year, while the international tournaments rose up dramatically. And if I look at the 2018-2021 era I'd put Serral at #3 behind Maru and Rogue. It's really only the post-Blizzard era where Serral became dominant and the undisputed best 2018-2021, only from tournaments with top Korean participation of course and only versus top Koreans/Serral Match win rates (the higher, the better)Maru 66,18 64,86 68,42 76,39 Serral 85,71 76,67 85,71 70,31 Rogue 62,44 65,56 59,46 54,31
Tournament win percentage (the higher, the better)2018 (Maru - Serral - Rogue) 44,44 50,00 11,11 2019 (Maru - Serral - Rogue) 11,11 33,33 14,29 2020 (Maru - Serral - Rogue) 20,00 28,57 20,00 2021 (Maru - Serral - Rogue) 18,18 22,22 25,00 Average place (the lower, the better)Maru 3,39 10,97 5,60 4,32 Serral 2,92 2,92 5,14 4,06 Rogue 12,49 12,31 8,90 5,25 PT winsMaru 9, including 4 GSLs. In 5 out of these 9 tournaments the statistically absolute best player of the world was not present Serral 9, including 1 World Championship. 7 region lock PT wins were not counted. Rogue 7, including 1 World Championship and 2 GSLs. One can discuss whether this or that tournament was a WC or if it counts as a GSL… or how much impact it has on the Korean players' match win rates and tournament win percentage when Serral is present in a tournament. I think Maru and Serral are pretty head to head in that time frame if you look only at PT wins.. but with higher resolution including average rank, match win rates and tournament win percentage the difference is pretty wild. Rogue is 5 percentage points below Serral’s lowest number. And this is not adjusted for the Korean inflation of playing a lot of lower tier Koreans in qualifiers that Serral did not do. A fun fact: Even if we include in Serral’s tournament win percentage all of the over 20 GSLs that he missed as a loss, he’d still be above Maru and Rogue statistically. The time frame also seems kind of random/unintuitive. Rogue began his military in 2022 so a comparison between the three in that time frame seems more natural. Overall, for the time that they played together on the big stage (Maru and Serral since 2018 as well as Serral and Rogue from 2018-2022), Serral heavily outperformed them in all measurable statistics. In my article I included career-long statistics though, even the Serral’s slump years before he turned full time pro in 2018. Statistically, he still is far ahead. The more recent years, especially 2025 were number-wise competitively not as big as 2013-2015. GSL took hits from 2020 onward with constant player pool adjustments and the Koreans were impacted more in relation than the global scene (for obvious reasons). Some say that it is easier to win post-KeSPA, which might or might not be true because of StarCraft 2’s utterly different learning curve in comparison to other games, the downgraded tournament pool and the situation that you have to go through a 87% win rate monster (well… not in GSLs huehue). But even if that assumption was true, the question needs to be permitted: Why are Serral’s numbers so much better than the ones of his contemporaries Maru and Rogue? Overall I agree… the lifetime achievements of a player are important. But so are achievements relative to others. Maru may be the 2nd best Terran in HotS. But INno was above him even after 2018 (Inno 2 GSLs in KeSPA, plus an SSL and GSL in less than a year after the KeSPA disbandment). To me, Maru clearly took over around 2020 from INno. But in 2018 Serral came onto the stage and put his name on the table in a fashion that rivaled - and to me slightly beats - Maru’s insane 2018. And after 2018, year after year Serral’s claim grew stronger and stronger when he outperformed Maru. I asked several times how long Maru’s HotS buffer of being the 2nd best Terran and at most top4 overall will save him from Serral taking over - I never got an answer. To me it is fine that people like dedede or johnny put him as their GOAT. He is probably the 2nd best choice. But to me it makes sense why Miz updated his list (although its first iteration didn’t  ) Just some statistics/quirks that I owe to WombaT for quite some time. Some of these lack context and are not meant as a serious argument. If you find errors, let me know. - He was on rank 1 on Aligulac for over 40% of the game’s existence. If you include rank one it is over 50%. - Serral is the only player to be listed as the best versus all three races multiple times at different points of time in his career and did so four times overall. - Only player to go over 3800 Aligulac rating - Only player to go over 3900 Aligulac rating - Serral is either rank 1 or 2 since the beginning of 2018. - Serral wasn’t overtaken by anyone on Aligulac since April 2023. - Longest ever consecutive run of not losing a match versus Koreans: 26 - 2nd longest ever consecutive run of not losing a match versus Koreans: 19 - 3rd longest ever consecutive run of not losing a match versus Koreans: 18 - Longest ever consecutive run of not losing a match: 47 - Highest yearly win rates ever achieved (only versus Koreans): 96,30%, 85,71%, 2x 85,11% - Highest career long match win rate, despite others having much shorter careers (only versus Koreans): 70,73 - Highest career long match rate overall: 79,17% - Highest prime match rate versus Koreans: 80,27% - Highest prime match rate overall: 86,23% - Highest life time tournament win percentage: 38,10% - Even if you include all GSLs that Serral missed from 2018-2025 as a loss, his tournament win percentage is the highest in the history of the game. - When he goes into a tournament, he on average reaches the semi-finals (average place of 3,24) - Player with the most official and unofficial World Championships - Participated in 9 consecutive World Championships, won 3, has an average place of 4,39 and win rate of 33,33% - Most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean participation by far (tied with Maru) - Most Premier Tournament wins overall by far - One of two players (Mvp being the other) to achieve the Triple Crown twice - Serral has a positive match record versus every pro he played regularly, including all relevant GOAT contenders from his time: Dark, Cure, GuMiho, herO, Solar, Maru, ByuN, Classic, Bunny, Stats, soO, INnoVation, Rogue, Trap, Zest, Reynor, Clem and MaxPax. Dark, Rogue and Clem are the only 3 players that achieved to put Serral below a 60% win rate versus them. Dark -10:6:1- 58,8% Cure -24:2:1- 88,9% GuMiho -11:4:0- 73,3% herO -10:3:0- 76,9% Solar -18:7:1- 69,2% Maru -19:4:2- 76,0% ByuN -14:6-0- 70,0% Classic -12:3-0- 80,0% Bunny -9:2:0- 81,8% Stats -9:4:0- 69,2% soO -8:4:0- 66,7% Innovation -16:8:0- 66,7% Rogue -8:7:0- 53,3% Trap -14:3:0- 82,4% Zest -10:5:0- 66,7% Reynor -34-15:0- 69,4% MaxPax -21:7:0- 75,0% Clem -32:23:0- 58,2% Charoisaur, was it you that I was in agreement with that Serral's numbers of course would go down if we put all prime players together but that he'd most likely be on top in the end? I can't remember if it was you or someone else. Yeah, bad math by me. 2 is correct. As for the model, you're going to have to take into account the stretch at the beginning of WoL where matches were bo1, as well as potential issues such as the slightly strange OSL format etc etc.
Yeah.. also group stages of 4 with round robins versus GSL group stages... that's gonna be rough, but probably worth to model it once, to get a grasp of how tough different formats statistically truly are.
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On July 27 2025 16:53 ZombieGrub wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2025 16:26 dedede wrote:Oh yeah because it just doesn’t make sense to some people call someone the greatest of all time for dominating during a weak era (2022–2025), and just makes sense to the other people believe being the best right now with being the greatest of all time or buy so deeply into the ESL narrative as if they’re the ones officially crowning the GOAT. Btw, I watch tennis, soccer, and basketball, and I’ve never seen any tournament organizer itself push the GOAT narrative this hard as if they are the official authority. I’ve also never seen a group of hosts or casters show such obvious bias in any other sport, lol. I guess as the SC2 scene declines, neither the players nor the casters/hosts are really ‘pros’ anymore, so they don’t feel the need to act professional You debate on-topic until you decide to be either straight-up aggressive or passive-aggressive (a smiley? Really?) to casters rather than bring up an actual interesting conversation in good faith on whether the GOAT subject *is* professional or not. For my take on it, esports casting and production is just different. There's lots of things that esports productions would not do compared to traditional productions, and I love that. I personally don't use the GOAT terminology much at all but I've also never looked at my co-casters (or the production with the graphics, social media, etc) as unprofessional for bringing it into the discussion. If there are others who have such strong opinions, it hasn't reached anyone. So, it seems the community is generally okay with it and doesn't feel the need to take potshots. I'll add a more on-topic thing here which is that I do think Serral is the greatest of all time, but I understand the Maru argument. At this point most (all?) players even point to Serral. I also don't think it's that serious and it does breed one too many jerks with how serious some people do take it. Fun BTS stuff from EWC: In an interview with Rogue, it was asked who he thought was GOAT and maybe, is it him? He said if Serral wins, Serral is. If Maru wins, Maru is. Rogue said he should not be in the conversation.
That’s a fair take. But it’s worth highlighting that some casters started pushing the “Serral GOAT” narrative as early as 2019, which was way over the line. At that point, Serral only had one BlizzCon title and wasn’t even close to a top10 goat spot, yet the narrative has been pushed nonstop ever since. How is that not biased or unprofessional? Esports is different than traditional sports so this kind of things can be accepted?
“I also don’t think it’s that serious and it does breed one too many jerks with how serious some people do take it.”
That’s well said. The problem is, a lot of people do take it that seriously especially those who never watched SC2 before 2018 or even 2024, and they buy into it so much they outright deny facts: the insane competitiveness of the KeSPA era, the Zerg‑favored patches through most of LotV (even denying the completely broken Zerg patch in 2019). You get people casually saying Serral has been “dominating since 2018”? He’s clearly dominated from mid 2023-2025, sure, but look at the 2018-2021 results, how was he more dominant than Rogue or Maru, especially with other Zergs like Dark and Reynor winning world championships too? His h2h with Maru was close even before 2022 after which Maru’s style just became weak against him (I have a lot more to say about h2h but just gonna briefly mentioning it here since some people use it as if it's a solid argument). Then you also have people saying the discussion is “settled” because “hey, ESL/EWC made it official, Serral is the GOAT so everyone shut up.” Plus if you go to Serral’s liquipedia page, someone added “GOAT” as his nickname? Even Flash and Faker doesn’t have that “nickname”in their page, you see how serious some people get influenced by the production. That’s my biggest issue with this supposedly “not‑that‑serious” production.
As for the community being “generally” okay with it, I know plenty of people who couldn’t stand the biased English commentary (not from you) and production, and switched to other language streams. It feels “more okay” now because Serral’s been winning these past two years, but that doesn’t erase how bad it was for those of us who care about bias and fairness.
Let me repeat this: I’m not anti-foreigner. I was cheering crazy for Neeb when he played TY in GSL because I wanted the first foreign GSL finalist although I loved TY, and tastosis was not too obviously biased toward Neeb even they definitely rooted for him too so I wasn’t so annoyed by any unbiased commentating. That’s why I really like artosis - even he yells at his monitor when playing BW, he tries his best to be professional and unbiased when commentating.
Oh, and here’s another example to the previous section, that people buying into that narrative so hard that they actually get mad (seriously) at Artosis for having his own GOAT arguments.
What I can’t stand are unfairness and double standards, especially when they come from commentary and production, since those get broadcast and have a bigger influence.
Just to be clear, ZG, props to you for always trying to be professional. That previous comments weren’t aimed at you. You’re probably the most professional among the ESL English casters/hosts/staffs.
Rogue’s interview aligns the point: Maru’s achievements over 15 years of sc2 history stand out considering the level of competition and the overall balance in LoTV. Otherwise, why has he been in the top GOAT discussion despite two other Zergs holding multiple world titles? The only thing missing from his resume is an official world championship. He might never get one now, having missed too many chances when he was in his primes, but the argument for his overall legacy stays the same.
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United States1869 Posts
On July 28 2025 06:45 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2025 16:53 ZombieGrub wrote:On July 27 2025 16:26 dedede wrote:Oh yeah because it just doesn’t make sense to some people call someone the greatest of all time for dominating during a weak era (2022–2025), and just makes sense to the other people believe being the best right now with being the greatest of all time or buy so deeply into the ESL narrative as if they’re the ones officially crowning the GOAT. Btw, I watch tennis, soccer, and basketball, and I’ve never seen any tournament organizer itself push the GOAT narrative this hard as if they are the official authority. I’ve also never seen a group of hosts or casters show such obvious bias in any other sport, lol. I guess as the SC2 scene declines, neither the players nor the casters/hosts are really ‘pros’ anymore, so they don’t feel the need to act professional You debate on-topic until you decide to be either straight-up aggressive or passive-aggressive (a smiley? Really?) to casters rather than bring up an actual interesting conversation in good faith on whether the GOAT subject *is* professional or not. For my take on it, esports casting and production is just different. There's lots of things that esports productions would not do compared to traditional productions, and I love that. I personally don't use the GOAT terminology much at all but I've also never looked at my co-casters (or the production with the graphics, social media, etc) as unprofessional for bringing it into the discussion. If there are others who have such strong opinions, it hasn't reached anyone. So, it seems the community is generally okay with it and doesn't feel the need to take potshots. I'll add a more on-topic thing here which is that I do think Serral is the greatest of all time, but I understand the Maru argument. At this point most (all?) players even point to Serral. I also don't think it's that serious and it does breed one too many jerks with how serious some people do take it. Fun BTS stuff from EWC: In an interview with Rogue, it was asked who he thought was GOAT and maybe, is it him? He said if Serral wins, Serral is. If Maru wins, Maru is. Rogue said he should not be in the conversation. That’s a fair take. But it’s worth highlighting that some casters started pushing the “Serral GOAT” narrative as early as 2019, which was way over the line. At that point, Serral only had one BlizzCon title and wasn’t even close to a top10 goat spot, yet the narrative has been pushed nonstop ever since. How is that not biased or unprofessional? Esports is different than traditional sports so this kind of things can be accepted? “I also don’t think it’s that serious and it does breed one too many jerks with how serious some people do take it.” That’s well said. The problem is, a lot of people do take it that seriously especially those who never watched SC2 before 2018 or even 2024, and they buy into it so much they outright deny facts: the insane competitiveness of the KeSPA era, the Zerg‑favored patches through most of LotV (even denying the completely broken Zerg patch in 2019). You get people casually saying Serral has been “dominating since 2018”? He’s clearly dominated from mid 2023-2025, sure, but look at the 2018-2021 results, how was he more dominant than Rogue or Maru, especially with other Zergs like Dark and Reynor winning world championships too? His h2h with Maru was close even before 2022 after which Maru’s style just became weak against him (I have a lot more to say about h2h but just gonna briefly mentioning it here since some people use it as if it's a solid argument). Then you also have people saying the discussion is “settled” because “hey, ESL/EWC made it official, Serral is the GOAT so everyone shut up.” Plus if you go to Serral’s liquipedia page, someone added “GOAT” as his nickname? Even Flash and Faker doesn’t have that “nickname”in their page, you see how serious some people get influenced by the production. That’s my biggest issue with this supposedly “not‑that‑serious” production. As for the community being “generally” okay with it, I know plenty of people who couldn’t stand the biased English commentary (not from you) and production, and switched to other language streams. It feels “more okay” now because Serral’s been winning these past two years, but that doesn’t erase how bad it was for those of us who care about bias and fairness. Let me repeat this: I’m not anti-foreigner. I was cheering crazy for Neeb when he played TY in GSL because I wanted the first foreign GSL finalist although I loved TY, and tastosis was not too obviously biased toward Neeb even they definitely rooted for him too so I wasn’t so annoyed by any unbiased commentating. That’s why I really like artosis - even he yells at his monitor when playing BW, he tries his best to be professional and unbiased when commentating. Oh, and here’s another example to the previous section, that people buying into that narrative so hard that they actually get mad (seriously) at Artosis for having his own GOAT arguments. What I can’t stand are unfairness and double standards, especially when they come from commentary and production, since those get broadcast and have a bigger influence. Just to be clear, ZG, props to you for always trying to be professional. That previous comments weren’t aimed at you. You’re probably the most professional among the ESL English casters/hosts/staffs. Rogue’s interview aligns the point: Maru’s achievements over 15 years of sc2 history stand out considering the level of competition and the overall balance in LoTV. Otherwise, why has he been in the top GOAT discussion despite two other Zergs holding multiple world titles? The only thing missing from his resume is an official world championship. He might never get one now, having missed too many chances when he was in his primes, but the argument for his overall legacy stays the same.
I'm sure they'll talk about Serral less when someone else manages to win a tournament.
In all seriousness, You are technically right in the sense that the GOAT conversation should be nuanced , but during a broadcast isn't the time to give a huge history legend to a bunch of people who probably never watched Hots and couldn't care less. If you feel so strongly about this topic, this is probably the best place to butt heads with other people over minute details.
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As someone who has spend quite a bit of time shoutcasting (though of course not in a professional (aka. paid) setup like ZG and co):
You have to be on point when you hype someone up. "Serral is really good, but you can't forget the chance that some people think Zerg is overpowered and his weak phase from week 6 to 8 in the year 2019 and also how he sometimes loses ZvZs to koreans, so yeah maybe he is the GOAT but maybe it is the guy who crashed out of the tournament four rounds ago and why is no one listening to me?!?!" is not particularlly working. "Serral is the mfing GOAT and did it again!" however does.
It is also always funny to me, coming from WC3, how people complain a "foreigner bias" in SC2. in WC3, we were blatantly foreigner-biased, but in a very competitive and tongue-in-cheek kind of way. Because the Koreans and the top Europeans were so close to each other, it was a real "we vs. them"-feeling. We also didn't really use the term foreigner, as that originiated in BW, because the split never was that heavy. Still of course we enjoyed the craziness of Moon, the micro of Remind and whatever the fuck Lucifer was doing. But still, with all the hyping we did for Grubby and co. I don't think there was any prominant shoutcaster in the scene who was actually racist against koreans and truely "hated" them. You always cheered for the European, but if only Koreans were left, you went on with your job and hyped them up. Because no one wants a shoutcast without hype.
But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started. Since you mentioned Neeb: Now he often is presented as "the true foreigner who broke korea", but back in the day his achievement was celebrated, but also hate quite the backlash. Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World?
Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it...
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Northern Ireland25257 Posts
On July 28 2025 06:45 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2025 16:53 ZombieGrub wrote:On July 27 2025 16:26 dedede wrote:Oh yeah because it just doesn’t make sense to some people call someone the greatest of all time for dominating during a weak era (2022–2025), and just makes sense to the other people believe being the best right now with being the greatest of all time or buy so deeply into the ESL narrative as if they’re the ones officially crowning the GOAT. Btw, I watch tennis, soccer, and basketball, and I’ve never seen any tournament organizer itself push the GOAT narrative this hard as if they are the official authority. I’ve also never seen a group of hosts or casters show such obvious bias in any other sport, lol. I guess as the SC2 scene declines, neither the players nor the casters/hosts are really ‘pros’ anymore, so they don’t feel the need to act professional You debate on-topic until you decide to be either straight-up aggressive or passive-aggressive (a smiley? Really?) to casters rather than bring up an actual interesting conversation in good faith on whether the GOAT subject *is* professional or not. For my take on it, esports casting and production is just different. There's lots of things that esports productions would not do compared to traditional productions, and I love that. I personally don't use the GOAT terminology much at all but I've also never looked at my co-casters (or the production with the graphics, social media, etc) as unprofessional for bringing it into the discussion. If there are others who have such strong opinions, it hasn't reached anyone. So, it seems the community is generally okay with it and doesn't feel the need to take potshots. I'll add a more on-topic thing here which is that I do think Serral is the greatest of all time, but I understand the Maru argument. At this point most (all?) players even point to Serral. I also don't think it's that serious and it does breed one too many jerks with how serious some people do take it. Fun BTS stuff from EWC: In an interview with Rogue, it was asked who he thought was GOAT and maybe, is it him? He said if Serral wins, Serral is. If Maru wins, Maru is. Rogue said he should not be in the conversation. That’s a fair take. But it’s worth highlighting that some casters started pushing the “Serral GOAT” narrative as early as 2019, which was way over the line. At that point, Serral only had one BlizzCon title and wasn’t even close to a top10 goat spot, yet the narrative has been pushed nonstop ever since. How is that not biased or unprofessional? Esports is different than traditional sports so this kind of things can be accepted? “I also don’t think it’s that serious and it does breed one too many jerks with how serious some people do take it.” That’s well said. The problem is, a lot of people do take it that seriously especially those who never watched SC2 before 2018 or even 2024, and they buy into it so much they outright deny facts: the insane competitiveness of the KeSPA era, the Zerg‑favored patches through most of LotV (even denying the completely broken Zerg patch in 2019). You get people casually saying Serral has been “dominating since 2018”? He’s clearly dominated from mid 2023-2025, sure, but look at the 2018-2021 results, how was he more dominant than Rogue or Maru, especially with other Zergs like Dark and Reynor winning world championships too? His h2h with Maru was close even before 2022 after which Maru’s style just became weak against him (I have a lot more to say about h2h but just gonna briefly mentioning it here since some people use it as if it's a solid argument). Then you also have people saying the discussion is “settled” because “hey, ESL/EWC made it official, Serral is the GOAT so everyone shut up.” Plus if you go to Serral’s liquipedia page, someone added “GOAT” as his nickname? Even Flash and Faker doesn’t have that “nickname”in their page, you see how serious some people get influenced by the production. That’s my biggest issue with this supposedly “not‑that‑serious” production. As for the community being “generally” okay with it, I know plenty of people who couldn’t stand the biased English commentary (not from you) and production, and switched to other language streams. It feels “more okay” now because Serral’s been winning these past two years, but that doesn’t erase how bad it was for those of us who care about bias and fairness. Let me repeat this: I’m not anti-foreigner. I was cheering crazy for Neeb when he played TY in GSL because I wanted the first foreign GSL finalist although I loved TY, and tastosis was not too obviously biased toward Neeb even they definitely rooted for him too so I wasn’t so annoyed by any unbiased commentating. That’s why I really like artosis - even he yells at his monitor when playing BW, he tries his best to be professional and unbiased when commentating. Oh, and here’s another example to the previous section, that people buying into that narrative so hard that they actually get mad (seriously) at Artosis for having his own GOAT arguments. What I can’t stand are unfairness and double standards, especially when they come from commentary and production, since those get broadcast and have a bigger influence. Just to be clear, ZG, props to you for always trying to be professional. That previous comments weren’t aimed at you. You’re probably the most professional among the ESL English casters/hosts/staffs. Rogue’s interview aligns the point: Maru’s achievements over 15 years of sc2 history stand out considering the level of competition and the overall balance in LoTV. Otherwise, why has he been in the top GOAT discussion despite two other Zergs holding multiple world titles? The only thing missing from his resume is an official world championship. He might never get one now, having missed too many chances when he was in his primes, but the argument for his overall legacy stays the same.
It’s really quite rich of you to have such an apparent issue with bias given how you approach this topic. Which is basically an endless circle of pretending to not get the arguments for Serral, and repeating your own initial argument ad nauseam with no evolution whatsoever. I will stress you don’t have to agree with counter-arguments, but you don’t seem to consider them much at all.
And this strange magical time-warping ability when achievements either do count or don’t based on the weak era almost entirely based on who’s doing them.
Serral has GOAT as one of his nicknames on Liquipedia, it’s pretty outrageous to be fair, people shouldn’t do that, you don’t see hyperbolic nicknames attached to other players.
Just shimmying over to the Brood War pages, I discovered this player called Flash, pretty good player apparently.
Nickname(s):Little Monster, Ultimate Weapon(最终兵器), 教主, Final boss, God
I’m not a religious man, I do somewhat understand the concept of God and what that denotes.
The argument for Serral as the GOAT for most is really down to 3 things and 3 things alone. Honestly above merely what he’s won IMO
1. His overall stats being bonkers.
2. Some of the most dominant years or spans ever seen in the game.
3. When not having a real dominant year, he’ll at worst have a top 4 year, or a best overall year across the board, but lose out the big prizes and have a less great year than someone who clutched it.
4. Maintaining this over 7 years back-to-back-to-back. Maru has been there, or there-abouts as a contender for longer, which is to his immense credit. At this point very few others have in the game’s history. And nobody to quite the level of those two. Some have been capable of winning tournaments, but sometimes it’s merely in the ‘contenders’ and not ‘one of the favourites’ bracket. And most have had notable slump periods.
I mean genuinely (I went looking the other day), when is the last time Serral didn’t get out of an initial bracket, or group stage or into playoffs, or lost to a player that wasn’t at least A tier?
Even Mvp when he was a tier above, in an era that didn’t hit the heights of Kespa would lose to players way worse than him. Voldemort famously once lost to Sjow who wasn’t even a top-tier foreigner at a Dreamhack (IIRC)
Even in the post-Kespa era, even if we accept the level has dropped considerably, other S-tier players like Maru, Rogue, Dark etc suffer first round exits from tournaments.
Reynor, his teammate and great friend can peak to World Champ level, but he’s not knocking off deep playoff performances every tournament.
People may have different flavours of what they consider greatness, I try to factor them all in. Peak level just pure skill (Maru, Voldemort or Inno), clutching it on the biggest stage (Rogue, sOs), finding a way to compete against the odds (Mvp), or whatever it is, and I respect people for their various weightings.
Serral does pretty OK in most of those categories let’s say, but in sheer consistency he’s just so far ahead to an outlying degree that’s why he gets my personal vote. When Reynor for example was closing in in terms of big WC-tier wins, I considered him absolutley top tier and an incredible talent, but not a rival to Serral in a GOAT conversation. Simply because he just doesn’t have Serral’s ability to always be competitive in every single tournament. Clem’s shown an ability to play at arguably the highest level ever seen in TvZ, absolutely but he’s not shown what Serral has over a long period either.
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On July 28 2025 08:08 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2025 06:45 dedede wrote:On July 27 2025 16:53 ZombieGrub wrote:On July 27 2025 16:26 dedede wrote:Oh yeah because it just doesn’t make sense to some people call someone the greatest of all time for dominating during a weak era (2022–2025), and just makes sense to the other people believe being the best right now with being the greatest of all time or buy so deeply into the ESL narrative as if they’re the ones officially crowning the GOAT. Btw, I watch tennis, soccer, and basketball, and I’ve never seen any tournament organizer itself push the GOAT narrative this hard as if they are the official authority. I’ve also never seen a group of hosts or casters show such obvious bias in any other sport, lol. I guess as the SC2 scene declines, neither the players nor the casters/hosts are really ‘pros’ anymore, so they don’t feel the need to act professional You debate on-topic until you decide to be either straight-up aggressive or passive-aggressive (a smiley? Really?) to casters rather than bring up an actual interesting conversation in good faith on whether the GOAT subject *is* professional or not. For my take on it, esports casting and production is just different. There's lots of things that esports productions would not do compared to traditional productions, and I love that. I personally don't use the GOAT terminology much at all but I've also never looked at my co-casters (or the production with the graphics, social media, etc) as unprofessional for bringing it into the discussion. If there are others who have such strong opinions, it hasn't reached anyone. So, it seems the community is generally okay with it and doesn't feel the need to take potshots. I'll add a more on-topic thing here which is that I do think Serral is the greatest of all time, but I understand the Maru argument. At this point most (all?) players even point to Serral. I also don't think it's that serious and it does breed one too many jerks with how serious some people do take it. Fun BTS stuff from EWC: In an interview with Rogue, it was asked who he thought was GOAT and maybe, is it him? He said if Serral wins, Serral is. If Maru wins, Maru is. Rogue said he should not be in the conversation. That’s a fair take. But it’s worth highlighting that some casters started pushing the “Serral GOAT” narrative as early as 2019, which was way over the line. At that point, Serral only had one BlizzCon title and wasn’t even close to a top10 goat spot, yet the narrative has been pushed nonstop ever since. How is that not biased or unprofessional? Esports is different than traditional sports so this kind of things can be accepted? “I also don’t think it’s that serious and it does breed one too many jerks with how serious some people do take it.” That’s well said. The problem is, a lot of people do take it that seriously especially those who never watched SC2 before 2018 or even 2024, and they buy into it so much they outright deny facts: the insane competitiveness of the KeSPA era, the Zerg‑favored patches through most of LotV (even denying the completely broken Zerg patch in 2019). You get people casually saying Serral has been “dominating since 2018”? He’s clearly dominated from mid 2023-2025, sure, but look at the 2018-2021 results, how was he more dominant than Rogue or Maru, especially with other Zergs like Dark and Reynor winning world championships too? His h2h with Maru was close even before 2022 after which Maru’s style just became weak against him (I have a lot more to say about h2h but just gonna briefly mentioning it here since some people use it as if it's a solid argument). Then you also have people saying the discussion is “settled” because “hey, ESL/EWC made it official, Serral is the GOAT so everyone shut up.” Plus if you go to Serral’s liquipedia page, someone added “GOAT” as his nickname? Even Flash and Faker doesn’t have that “nickname”in their page, you see how serious some people get influenced by the production. That’s my biggest issue with this supposedly “not‑that‑serious” production. As for the community being “generally” okay with it, I know plenty of people who couldn’t stand the biased English commentary (not from you) and production, and switched to other language streams. It feels “more okay” now because Serral’s been winning these past two years, but that doesn’t erase how bad it was for those of us who care about bias and fairness. Let me repeat this: I’m not anti-foreigner. I was cheering crazy for Neeb when he played TY in GSL because I wanted the first foreign GSL finalist although I loved TY, and tastosis was not too obviously biased toward Neeb even they definitely rooted for him too so I wasn’t so annoyed by any unbiased commentating. That’s why I really like artosis - even he yells at his monitor when playing BW, he tries his best to be professional and unbiased when commentating. Oh, and here’s another example to the previous section, that people buying into that narrative so hard that they actually get mad (seriously) at Artosis for having his own GOAT arguments. What I can’t stand are unfairness and double standards, especially when they come from commentary and production, since those get broadcast and have a bigger influence. Just to be clear, ZG, props to you for always trying to be professional. That previous comments weren’t aimed at you. You’re probably the most professional among the ESL English casters/hosts/staffs. Rogue’s interview aligns the point: Maru’s achievements over 15 years of sc2 history stand out considering the level of competition and the overall balance in LoTV. Otherwise, why has he been in the top GOAT discussion despite two other Zergs holding multiple world titles? The only thing missing from his resume is an official world championship. He might never get one now, having missed too many chances when he was in his primes, but the argument for his overall legacy stays the same. I'm sure they'll talk about Serral less when someone else manages to win a tournament. In all seriousnes, You are techincally right in the sense that the GOAT conversation should be nuanced and go into details liek those you desercibe, but on a broadcast isn't the time to give a huge history legend to a bunch of people who probably never watched Hots and couldn't care less. If you feel so strongly about this topic, this is probably the best place to butt heads with other people over minute details.
Yeah, they’ll talk about Serral less when someone else actually wins a tournament, BUT they still bring him up even when other players are winning matches or entire events. And it’s not like mentioning relevant info such as ‘oh, TY also used this build’ or ‘Rogue came up with this build’, they jump straight to praising Serral even while other players are competing and taking the win.
And I get that broadcasts have limited time, but doesn’t that make it even more important not to push a narrative they can’t fully explain or back up? Instead, they present it as if it’s the truth which ends up making people who never even watched HOTS or first half or LOTV so believe it. Those same people then pressure others to stay quiet, call them coping, or accuse them of GSL/Korean bias even when the ones with detailed context who can be players, casters (like Artosis), TL writers (like you), or just random forum viewers like us.
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On July 28 2025 08:49 Balnazza wrote:
As someone who has spend quite a bit of time shoutcasting (though of course not in a professional (aka. paid) setup like ZG and co):
You have to be on point when you hype someone up. "Serral is really good, but you can't forget the chance that some people think Zerg is overpowered and his weak phase from week 6 to 8 in the year 2019 and also how he sometimes loses ZvZs to koreans, so yeah maybe he is the GOAT but maybe it is the guy who crashed out of the tournament four rounds ago and why is no one listening to me?!?!" is not particularlly working. "Serral is the mfing GOAT and did it again!" however does.
It is also always funny to me, coming from WC3, how people complain a "foreigner bias" in SC2. in WC3, we were blatantly foreigner-biased, but in a very competitive and tongue-in-cheek kind of way. Because the Koreans and the top Europeans were so close to each other, it was a real "we vs. them"-feeling. We also didn't really use the term foreigner, as that originiated in BW, because the split never was that heavy. Still of course we enjoyed the craziness of Moon, the micro of Remind and whatever the fuck Lucifer was doing. But still, with all the hyping we did for Grubby and co. I don't think there was any prominant shoutcaster in the scene who was actually racist against koreans and truely "hated" them. You always cheered for the European, but if only Koreans were left, you went on with your job and hyped them up. Because no one wants a shoutcast without hype.
But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started. Since you mentioned Neeb: Now he often is presented as "the true foreigner who broke korea", but back in the day his achievement was celebrated, but also hate quite the backlash. Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World?
Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it...
But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started.
This isn’t true. I was literally at BlizzCon 2018, and the level of foreigner bias when Serral played Rogue was unreal. Even if there was any so-called ‘hate train,’ the amount of foreigner bias far outweighed any of the ‘hate.’
Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World?
Neeb won Kespa cup, FYI.
Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it...
GSL has been there since the very beginning of SC2 and was for a long time the most prestigious league. Now that if it’s really gone, some people especially those who watched GSL for a long time, have the right to FEEL like the scene is ending.
And honestly, doesn't it look dead? With no regular leagues either GSL or DH and only EWC left, players can basically take nine months off and then come back to compete for just three. It feels more like a part-time job than a pro scene.
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Northern Ireland25257 Posts
On July 28 2025 08:49 Balnazza wrote:
As someone who has spend quite a bit of time shoutcasting (though of course not in a professional (aka. paid) setup like ZG and co):
You have to be on point when you hype someone up. "Serral is really good, but you can't forget the chance that some people think Zerg is overpowered and his weak phase from week 6 to 8 in the year 2019 and also how he sometimes loses ZvZs to koreans, so yeah maybe he is the GOAT but maybe it is the guy who crashed out of the tournament four rounds ago and why is no one listening to me?!?!" is not particularlly working. "Serral is the mfing GOAT and did it again!" however does.
It is also always funny to me, coming from WC3, how people complain a "foreigner bias" in SC2. in WC3, we were blatantly foreigner-biased, but in a very competitive and tongue-in-cheek kind of way. Because the Koreans and the top Europeans were so close to each other, it was a real "we vs. them"-feeling. We also didn't really use the term foreigner, as that originiated in BW, because the split never was that heavy. Still of course we enjoyed the craziness of Moon, the micro of Remind and whatever the fuck Lucifer was doing. But still, with all the hyping we did for Grubby and co. I don't think there was any prominant shoutcaster in the scene who was actually racist against koreans and truely "hated" them. You always cheered for the European, but if only Koreans were left, you went on with your job and hyped them up. Because no one wants a shoutcast without hype.
But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started. Since you mentioned Neeb: Now he often is presented as "the true foreigner who broke korea", but back in the day his achievement was celebrated, but also hate quite the backlash. Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World?
Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it...
There are people who have made part of their identity as being a fan of Korean StarCraft rather than the game of StarCraft and it really shows.
As someone who loves Korean StarCraft and am still rocking my Filco Majestouch signed by my favourite player Liquid HerO (amongst others) from Dreamhack Winter 2011 (IIRC). The other herO is one of my favourites today too!
I think one of the tragedies of the scene was we never really had a period where the foreigner environment and the Korean one were kinda equal.
We had all the parts, just at different times.
Koreans had a huge structural advantage initially and for quite some time.
I think region lock would have worked for foreigners to at least somewhat close the gap, if it were implemented way earlier. If you could realistically aspire to being the best EU, or NA player and that being a decent living, versus having to compete with shitloads of elite hothoused players.
The shame is I think they found the right system for foreigners, but it coincided with Kespa pulling out, and they didn’t address that issue at the Korean side to develop their next generation.
Look at say, tennis, they’re not region-locked because tennis doesn’t have a problem of particularly dominant regions, but you’ve the B-tier Challenger Tour, or smaller ATP 250 events so new players can learn their trade, and a living.
If, as was the case in certain StarCraft epochs, if you were a promising foreign player, to actually make a good living (outside of salaries from teams, which we’re not privy to), you basically had to be able to go from promising youngster, to being able to hang with good Koreans almost immediately, with no intermediary step.
You have region lock? Well someone like Serral goes full-time pro, because winning WCS events, with decent money is a realistic aspiration.
I think if you asked Serral, realistically he didn’t remotely expect his 2018. Aspiration sure, but he committed to full time pro going in because he probably felt he could do pretty well on the WCS circuit, and build up his skill to compete with Korea’s best. He just got there a bit faster than expected.
Without an intermediary step such as regionals, or something solid like a team house environment where you can learn your trade, you basically have to jump from newcomer to elite tier almost immediately, and very few can do that solo.
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Northern Ireland25257 Posts
On July 28 2025 09:35 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2025 08:49 Balnazza wrote:
As someone who has spend quite a bit of time shoutcasting (though of course not in a professional (aka. paid) setup like ZG and co):
You have to be on point when you hype someone up. "Serral is really good, but you can't forget the chance that some people think Zerg is overpowered and his weak phase from week 6 to 8 in the year 2019 and also how he sometimes loses ZvZs to koreans, so yeah maybe he is the GOAT but maybe it is the guy who crashed out of the tournament four rounds ago and why is no one listening to me?!?!" is not particularlly working. "Serral is the mfing GOAT and did it again!" however does.
It is also always funny to me, coming from WC3, how people complain a "foreigner bias" in SC2. in WC3, we were blatantly foreigner-biased, but in a very competitive and tongue-in-cheek kind of way. Because the Koreans and the top Europeans were so close to each other, it was a real "we vs. them"-feeling. We also didn't really use the term foreigner, as that originiated in BW, because the split never was that heavy. Still of course we enjoyed the craziness of Moon, the micro of Remind and whatever the fuck Lucifer was doing. But still, with all the hyping we did for Grubby and co. I don't think there was any prominant shoutcaster in the scene who was actually racist against koreans and truely "hated" them. You always cheered for the European, but if only Koreans were left, you went on with your job and hyped them up. Because no one wants a shoutcast without hype.
But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started. Since you mentioned Neeb: Now he often is presented as "the true foreigner who broke korea", but back in the day his achievement was celebrated, but also hate quite the backlash. Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World?
Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it... Show nested quote +But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started. This isn’t true. I was literally at BlizzCon 2018, and the level of foreigner bias when Serral played Rogue was unreal. Even if there was any so-called ‘hate train,’ the amount of foreigner bias far outweighed any of the ‘hate.’ Show nested quote +Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World? Neeb won Kespa cup, FYI. Show nested quote +Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it... GSL has been there since the very beginning of SC2 and was for a long time the most prestigious league. Now that if it’s really gone, some people especially those who watched GSL for a long time, have the right to FEEL like the scene is ending. And honestly, doesn't it look dead? With no regular leagues either GSL or DH and only EWC left, players can basically take nine months off and then come back to compete for just three. It feels more like a part-time job than a pro scene.
Hey it’s a bit biased to some degree but SC2 has always been bigger in foreign land than in Korea proportionally.
Korea is StarCraft’s Mecca, and it had been a decade and a half+ since anyone not Korean had won a real crown jewel league.
Of course people are going to hype that up.
On international broadcasts I imagine it was different but on British ones, Andy Murray ending a 77 year drought of having a British champion at a British crown jewel tournament was a huge deal. Indeed, many of us had lived through many an agonising close call when Tim Henman got close multiple times only to fall short.
It would be weird not to make that some part of the broadcast. History may be made! Narrative context is a huge part of good sports broadcasting.
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United States1869 Posts
On July 28 2025 09:35 dedede wrote:This isn’t true. I was literally at BlizzCon 2018, and the level of foreigner bias when Serral played Rogue was unreal. Even if there was any so-called ‘hate train,’ the amount of foreigner bias far outweighed any of the ‘hate.’
Serral winning BlizzCon in 2018 is the most significant moment in the history of StarCraft II and, arguably, Brood War as well. They should have been pushing that storyline.
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On July 28 2025 09:52 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2025 09:35 dedede wrote:On July 28 2025 08:49 Balnazza wrote:
As someone who has spend quite a bit of time shoutcasting (though of course not in a professional (aka. paid) setup like ZG and co):
You have to be on point when you hype someone up. "Serral is really good, but you can't forget the chance that some people think Zerg is overpowered and his weak phase from week 6 to 8 in the year 2019 and also how he sometimes loses ZvZs to koreans, so yeah maybe he is the GOAT but maybe it is the guy who crashed out of the tournament four rounds ago and why is no one listening to me?!?!" is not particularlly working. "Serral is the mfing GOAT and did it again!" however does.
It is also always funny to me, coming from WC3, how people complain a "foreigner bias" in SC2. in WC3, we were blatantly foreigner-biased, but in a very competitive and tongue-in-cheek kind of way. Because the Koreans and the top Europeans were so close to each other, it was a real "we vs. them"-feeling. We also didn't really use the term foreigner, as that originiated in BW, because the split never was that heavy. Still of course we enjoyed the craziness of Moon, the micro of Remind and whatever the fuck Lucifer was doing. But still, with all the hyping we did for Grubby and co. I don't think there was any prominant shoutcaster in the scene who was actually racist against koreans and truely "hated" them. You always cheered for the European, but if only Koreans were left, you went on with your job and hyped them up. Because no one wants a shoutcast without hype.
But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started. Since you mentioned Neeb: Now he often is presented as "the true foreigner who broke korea", but back in the day his achievement was celebrated, but also hate quite the backlash. Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World?
Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it... But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started. This isn’t true. I was literally at BlizzCon 2018, and the level of foreigner bias when Serral played Rogue was unreal. Even if there was any so-called ‘hate train,’ the amount of foreigner bias far outweighed any of the ‘hate.’ Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World? Neeb won Kespa cup, FYI. Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it... GSL has been there since the very beginning of SC2 and was for a long time the most prestigious league. Now that if it’s really gone, some people especially those who watched GSL for a long time, have the right to FEEL like the scene is ending. And honestly, doesn't it look dead? With no regular leagues either GSL or DH and only EWC left, players can basically take nine months off and then come back to compete for just three. It feels more like a part-time job than a pro scene. Hey it’s a bit biased to some degree but SC2 has always been bigger in foreign land than in Korea proportionally. Korea is StarCraft’s Mecca, and it had been a decade and a half+ since anyone not Korean had won a real crown jewel league. Of course people are going to hype that up. On international broadcasts I imagine it was different but on British ones, Andy Murray ending a 77 year drought of having a British champion at a British crown jewel tournament was a huge deal. Indeed, many of us had lived through many an agonising close call when Tim Henman got close multiple times only to fall short. It would be weird not to make that some part of the broadcast. History may be made! Narrative context is a huge part of good sports broadcasting.
That might make sense to some people, but it doesn’t to me. I’m part of the SC2 audience too, so I’m voicing my frustration (and I know quite a few others feel the same). Otherwise, it seems that the staff genuinely believes everyone is happy and fine with this.
For me, I can’t stand any form of discrimination/bias towards a player for reasons unrelated to their playstyle or gameplay, like the fact that they’re not Korean or that she’s a girl or that he's from a weak region or whatever. When it comes to hosts and casters, I have zero tolerance for obvious bias because to me keeping the stage fair and professional is the absolute baseline.
I’ll cheer for Scarlett over Rogue because I just love her cheesy zvz strategies, not because of anything personal. But if I were a caster, host, or producer, it would be my duty to keep things fair.
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On July 28 2025 09:54 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2025 09:35 dedede wrote:On July 28 2025 08:49 Balnazza wrote:
This isn’t true. I was literally at BlizzCon 2018, and the level of foreigner bias when Serral played Rogue was unreal. Even if there was any so-called ‘hate train,’ the amount of foreigner bias far outweighed any of the ‘hate.’ Serral winning BlizzCon in 2018 is the most significant moment in the history of StarCraft II and, arguably, Brood War as well. They should have been pushing that storyline.
I get what you mean, I explained in another comment why I can't stand it.
It's just serve as solid proof that the so-called ‘hate train’ against foreigners mentioned above just isn’t real.
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Northern Ireland25257 Posts
On July 28 2025 10:03 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2025 09:52 WombaT wrote:On July 28 2025 09:35 dedede wrote:On July 28 2025 08:49 Balnazza wrote:
As someone who has spend quite a bit of time shoutcasting (though of course not in a professional (aka. paid) setup like ZG and co):
You have to be on point when you hype someone up. "Serral is really good, but you can't forget the chance that some people think Zerg is overpowered and his weak phase from week 6 to 8 in the year 2019 and also how he sometimes loses ZvZs to koreans, so yeah maybe he is the GOAT but maybe it is the guy who crashed out of the tournament four rounds ago and why is no one listening to me?!?!" is not particularlly working. "Serral is the mfing GOAT and did it again!" however does.
It is also always funny to me, coming from WC3, how people complain a "foreigner bias" in SC2. in WC3, we were blatantly foreigner-biased, but in a very competitive and tongue-in-cheek kind of way. Because the Koreans and the top Europeans were so close to each other, it was a real "we vs. them"-feeling. We also didn't really use the term foreigner, as that originiated in BW, because the split never was that heavy. Still of course we enjoyed the craziness of Moon, the micro of Remind and whatever the fuck Lucifer was doing. But still, with all the hyping we did for Grubby and co. I don't think there was any prominant shoutcaster in the scene who was actually racist against koreans and truely "hated" them. You always cheered for the European, but if only Koreans were left, you went on with your job and hyped them up. Because no one wants a shoutcast without hype.
But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started. Since you mentioned Neeb: Now he often is presented as "the true foreigner who broke korea", but back in the day his achievement was celebrated, but also hate quite the backlash. Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World?
Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it... But in SC2? The moment any foreigner showed slight signs of going against the koreans, immediately the hate-train started. This isn’t true. I was literally at BlizzCon 2018, and the level of foreigner bias when Serral played Rogue was unreal. Even if there was any so-called ‘hate train,’ the amount of foreigner bias far outweighed any of the ‘hate.’ Clearly it was only because of Disruptor and also who cares about GSL vs. the World? Neeb won Kespa cup, FYI. Even today there are still people who think a 2K GSL with 12 players is the pinnacle of SC2 and the entire game loses its purpose without it... GSL has been there since the very beginning of SC2 and was for a long time the most prestigious league. Now that if it’s really gone, some people especially those who watched GSL for a long time, have the right to FEEL like the scene is ending. And honestly, doesn't it look dead? With no regular leagues either GSL or DH and only EWC left, players can basically take nine months off and then come back to compete for just three. It feels more like a part-time job than a pro scene. Hey it’s a bit biased to some degree but SC2 has always been bigger in foreign land than in Korea proportionally. Korea is StarCraft’s Mecca, and it had been a decade and a half+ since anyone not Korean had won a real crown jewel league. Of course people are going to hype that up. On international broadcasts I imagine it was different but on British ones, Andy Murray ending a 77 year drought of having a British champion at a British crown jewel tournament was a huge deal. Indeed, many of us had lived through many an agonising close call when Tim Henman got close multiple times only to fall short. It would be weird not to make that some part of the broadcast. History may be made! Narrative context is a huge part of good sports broadcasting. That might make sense to some people, but it doesn’t to me. I’m part of the SC2 audience too, so I’m voicing my frustration (and I know quite a few others feel the same). Otherwise, it seems that the staff genuinely believes everyone is happy and fine with this. For me, I can’t stand any form of discrimination/bias towards a player for reasons unrelated to their playstyle or gameplay, like the fact that they’re not Korean or that she’s a girl or that he's from a weak region or whatever. When it comes to hosts and casters, I have zero tolerance for obvious bias because to me keeping the stage fair and professional is the absolute baseline. I’ll cheer for Scarlett over Rogue because I just love her cheesy zvz strategies, not because of anything personal. But if I were a caster, host, or producer, it would be my duty to keep things fair.
Those are your proclivities, they’re not a reasonable expectation across the board.
People like an underdog story, and that was a huge one. Minimised somewhat that Serral went on to stay at that level, but at that time it was huge. I can’t change history but for pure hype if we swapped Serral breaking the Korean line for Oliveria’s run, and that being the first time a foreigner did it, like that would be undisputed the greatest ever run in SC2 history, rather than merely ‘up there’
I draw a line on shitting on a competitor, but hype is hype. I remember watching Rafael Nadal, the King of Clay at the French Open versus the talented but temperamental Swede Robin Soderling.
A giant gap in achievements, but for that specific day Robin’s strategy was to just smack low percentage monster shots all day. Except, for that day he was just nailing them.
I enjoyed the broadcast I watched, and is quite typical which was ‘holy shit is Soderling going to knock out the King of ClayTM?’ because that [i]meant[i/i] something. Nadal was considered basically unbeatable at Roland Garros, and to this day has the most slams from a single tournament and a fucking plaque there.
Likewise Serral breaking that new ground. Ok a neutral cast is unbiased but come on, it doesn’t remotely tap in to the narrative. Which is a huge part of casting, something I’ve done myself for 14 years now.
I mean I could say ‘here’s player 1, here’s player 2’ and just cast it. Or I could be like ‘here’s player 1 he’s won 5/14 events and placed top 4 in another 6, who’s going to challenge him?’
I mean your way is fairer but way more boring and I think ignores areas of why people even engage in sports in the first place
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EPT
