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Northern Ireland25445 Posts
On August 14 2025 14:08 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2025 08:00 WombaT wrote:On August 14 2025 00:35 Charoisaur wrote:On August 13 2025 22:32 WombaT wrote:On August 13 2025 22:02 Charoisaur wrote:
Trap won 6 premier tournaments + NeXT Winter which also had a stacked field during a time span of 7 months. During those runs he beat everyone including winning bo7s against Serral, Reynor and Stats. He was by all means the strongest player in the scene during that period.
Serral btw back then had a weaker phase and didn't win a single tournament during those 7 months (being knocked out twice by Trap). It's absolutely revisionist history to say Serral was still stronger at that time
Who said Serral was stronger? One assesses favourites for tournaments blind going in, one assesses who was stronger over a period afterwards. If Trap wins 7 tournaments in a period in which Serral wins 0 tournaments, then he should be the favorite over Serral in the next given tournament, no? Should somebody be the favourite, and them actually being the favourite don’t always match up. I have quite good memories of this period, being a Protoss lad, and being a Trap fan of like, continually saying Trap was being slept on. Why I did that? Because many posters absolutely were sleeping on him, I remember it quite well. One, completely understandable reason why at that time was, when it came to the big final(s) in GSL he got butchered in PvZ, and there were many good Zergs around. And, with his Super Tournament wins, Serral and Reynor weren’t there. Excellent PvP, the best PvT, and a decent PvZ that sometimes faltered against elite ZvPers. The latter is kind of a problem if, at the time the field of consistent tournament contenders and winners is stacked with Zerg. Trap absolutely answered those questions on his run, he was generally not the tournament favourite actually going into any of them though. Results absolutely count overall as well, but there’s a ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’ element to favourites too, especially at the big events. Rogue could be posting mediocre results, but it’s a WC, it’s Rogue. Maru had a pretty atrocious 2025 but people still felt he was a champ contender for EWC. I actually think he showed that some of that faith was merited, but made a few flubs against Cure. Which was a bit of a shame, the two biggest ‘unknowns’ I wanted to see, namely what Maru could bring to the table, and if Clem’s PvT could really cut it in a high stakes, WC tier playoff match, I didn’t get to. Well, I think we have to agree to disagree here about the favorite thing. But even if some people still considered Serral the favorite in every tournament back then, it definitely was far from an unanimous opinion.
Well yeah if you wanna make up arguments and factoids we can agree to disagree.
Given I’m the only person in the thread to even attempted to ascertain who was the favourite via betting odds in that span. Data that was too patchy for my tastes.
And I even said ‘Serral wasn’t the favourite for every tournament’, outright so, I dunno where you’re getting that from.
Anyway what I got was largely what I’d expected. I’ll note I skimmed and didn’t super deep-dive:
1. Serral was not always the favourite. Maru was the favourite for Kato 2019 for example, and understandably so
2. He was the favourite most often though, and his average given odds are the best.
Serral not being the favourite in a tournament, if we’re going down this rabbit hole, as per GOAT chat only realty matters if a direct rival is the favourite
If it’s Trap for a bit, Dark for a bit I mean, it’s not Maru either.
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On August 14 2025 08:00 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2025 00:35 Charoisaur wrote:On August 13 2025 22:32 WombaT wrote:On August 13 2025 22:02 Charoisaur wrote:
Trap won 6 premier tournaments + NeXT Winter which also had a stacked field during a time span of 7 months. During those runs he beat everyone including winning bo7s against Serral, Reynor and Stats. He was by all means the strongest player in the scene during that period.
Serral btw back then had a weaker phase and didn't win a single tournament during those 7 months (being knocked out twice by Trap). It's absolutely revisionist history to say Serral was still stronger at that time
Who said Serral was stronger? One assesses favourites for tournaments blind going in, one assesses who was stronger over a period afterwards. If Trap wins 7 tournaments in a period in which Serral wins 0 tournaments, then he should be the favorite over Serral in the next given tournament, no? Should somebody be the favourite, and them actually being the favourite don’t always match up. I have quite good memories of this period, being a Protoss lad, and being a Trap fan of like, continually saying Trap was being slept on. Why I did that? Because many posters absolutely were sleeping on him, I remember it quite well. One, completely understandable reason why at that time was, when it came to the big final(s) in GSL he got butchered in PvZ, and there were many good Zergs around. And, with his Super Tournament wins, Serral and Reynor weren’t there. Excellent PvP, the best PvT, and a decent PvZ that sometimes faltered against elite ZvPers. The latter is kind of a problem if, at the time the field of consistent tournament contenders and winners is stacked with Zerg. Trap absolutely answered those questions on his run, he was generally not the tournament favourite actually going into any of them though. Results absolutely count overall as well, but there’s a ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’ element to favourites too, especially at the big events. Rogue could be posting mediocre results, but it’s a WC, it’s Rogue. Maru had a pretty atrocious 2025 but people still felt he was a champ contender for EWC. I actually think he showed that some of that faith was merited, but made a few flubs against Cure. Which was a bit of a shame, the two biggest ‘unknowns’ I wanted to see, namely what Maru could bring to the table, and if Clem’s PvT could really cut it in a high stakes, WC tier playoff match, I didn’t get to.
That’s also what makes Serral so great. Most players peak and have their moment for a couple months (most less than a year). However Serral been able to maintain this form for 7 years and counting
Also it’s safe to say (based on all the weekly cups) Clem’s pvt is good against everyone except Maru (which we haven’t seen yet). I have yet to see any Protoss that correctly win against a late game against Terran’s mass liberator with ghost support
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Exactly.
And as WombaT pointed out... Serral (and Reynor) didn't play in the GSL Supers which are 3 of the 6 tournaments that Trap won in that time frame. Serral won DH Winter Finals versus Stats in the Finals (where Trap placed 9th-12th) and was closely defeated by Trap in Last Chance two months later. Then Trap went on to win the GSL Supers, so if we count the tournaments where Serral participated and Trap went into as - perhaps - a slight favorite we have 2 or 3 at most, if any at all.
Even if we look at singular tournaments where Serral wasn't the favorite... he was the favorite for most of the tournaments in comparison to all other players, so I don't really understand what this extremely small time frame or tournament count should prove.
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On August 14 2025 14:37 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2025 14:08 Charoisaur wrote:On August 14 2025 08:00 WombaT wrote:On August 14 2025 00:35 Charoisaur wrote:On August 13 2025 22:32 WombaT wrote:On August 13 2025 22:02 Charoisaur wrote:
Trap won 6 premier tournaments + NeXT Winter which also had a stacked field during a time span of 7 months. During those runs he beat everyone including winning bo7s against Serral, Reynor and Stats. He was by all means the strongest player in the scene during that period.
Serral btw back then had a weaker phase and didn't win a single tournament during those 7 months (being knocked out twice by Trap). It's absolutely revisionist history to say Serral was still stronger at that time
Who said Serral was stronger? One assesses favourites for tournaments blind going in, one assesses who was stronger over a period afterwards. If Trap wins 7 tournaments in a period in which Serral wins 0 tournaments, then he should be the favorite over Serral in the next given tournament, no? Should somebody be the favourite, and them actually being the favourite don’t always match up. I have quite good memories of this period, being a Protoss lad, and being a Trap fan of like, continually saying Trap was being slept on. Why I did that? Because many posters absolutely were sleeping on him, I remember it quite well. One, completely understandable reason why at that time was, when it came to the big final(s) in GSL he got butchered in PvZ, and there were many good Zergs around. And, with his Super Tournament wins, Serral and Reynor weren’t there. Excellent PvP, the best PvT, and a decent PvZ that sometimes faltered against elite ZvPers. The latter is kind of a problem if, at the time the field of consistent tournament contenders and winners is stacked with Zerg. Trap absolutely answered those questions on his run, he was generally not the tournament favourite actually going into any of them though. Results absolutely count overall as well, but there’s a ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’ element to favourites too, especially at the big events. Rogue could be posting mediocre results, but it’s a WC, it’s Rogue. Maru had a pretty atrocious 2025 but people still felt he was a champ contender for EWC. I actually think he showed that some of that faith was merited, but made a few flubs against Cure. Which was a bit of a shame, the two biggest ‘unknowns’ I wanted to see, namely what Maru could bring to the table, and if Clem’s PvT could really cut it in a high stakes, WC tier playoff match, I didn’t get to. Well, I think we have to agree to disagree here about the favorite thing. But even if some people still considered Serral the favorite in every tournament back then, it definitely was far from an unanimous opinion. Well yeah if you wanna make up arguments and factoids we can agree to disagree. Given I’m the only person in the thread to even attempted to ascertain who was the favourite via betting odds in that span. Data that was too patchy for my tastes. And I even said ‘Serral wasn’t the favourite for every tournament’, outright so, I dunno where you’re getting that from. Show nested quote + Anyway what I got was largely what I’d expected. I’ll note I skimmed and didn’t super deep-dive:
1. Serral was not always the favourite. Maru was the favourite for Kato 2019 for example, and understandably so
2. He was the favourite most often though, and his average given odds are the best. Serral not being the favourite in a tournament, if we’re going down this rabbit hole, as per GOAT chat only realty matters if a direct rival is the favourite If it’s Trap for a bit, Dark for a bit I mean, it’s not Maru either.
Well, the statement that Serral was the favorite in every tournament he entered was what started this whole argument. If you disagree with that statement, I'm not sure what we're arguing about here, but I guess then we agree to agree.
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EPT
