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Maru could have retired the day before Serral went full time (end of 2017 I think?) and would have probably still made this list.
If Rain and TY made it, then Maru from 2013-2017 definitely would have.
A lot of this discussion just makes me believe that pre-2018 Maru was extremely underrated by the community. It checks out because he never played internationally like INno or Taeja did, and most people didn't watch Proleague.
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On March 17 2024 09:24 Fango wrote: Maru could have retired the day before Serral went full time (end of 2017 I think?) and would have probably still made this list.
If Rain and TY made it, then Maru from 2013-2017 definitely would have.
A lot of this discussion just makes me believe that pre-2018 Maru was extremely underrated by the community. It checks out because he never played internationally like INno or Taeja did, and most people didn't watch Proleague.
You can easily do the opposite: People tend to completly overrate pre-2018 Maru because of hindsight. He would have quite the trouble to be in a Top 10 GOAT-list pre-2018, mostly carried by his hard to quantify Proleague-results. If you look at the WCS Korea standings 2016 and '17, Maru wasn't even in the Top 10 (he actually wasn't in the Top 20 in '16). So there is quite the dip in results at the beginning of LotV. And yes, I double-checked that because honestly, I couldn't believe it. I knew he missed a couple of BlizzCons but I didn't think it was that bad.
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On March 17 2024 10:07 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2024 09:24 Fango wrote: Maru could have retired the day before Serral went full time (end of 2017 I think?) and would have probably still made this list.
If Rain and TY made it, then Maru from 2013-2017 definitely would have.
A lot of this discussion just makes me believe that pre-2018 Maru was extremely underrated by the community. It checks out because he never played internationally like INno or Taeja did, and most people didn't watch Proleague.
You can easily do the opposite: People tend to completly overrate pre-2018 Maru because of hindsight. He would have quite the trouble to be in a Top 10 GOAT-list pre-2018, mostly carried by his hard to quantify Proleague-results. If you look at the WCS Korea standings 2016 and '17, Maru wasn't even in the Top 10 (he actually wasn't in the Top 20 in '16). So there is quite the dip in results at the beginning of LotV. And yes, I double-checked that because honestly, I couldn't believe it. I knew he missed a couple of BlizzCons but I didn't think it was that bad. It goes back again to how he never played in international events. It was pretty hard to make those Blizzcons off GSL and Proleague. While viOLet and duckdeok could get in farming europe. It wasn't like modern sc2 where those international events were the peak of sc2, Proleague was literally what player's were paid for.
I broke it down in one of the previous threads but Maru was genuinely the best Starleague player in HotS. He was tied with INno and Classic for wins, but outperformed both of them in double or more seasons, and had better winrates than both of them. Not to mention his ridiculous Proleague runs (which I agree is had to quantify, but like the dude almost broke Flash's record 2010 winrate)
If Rain makes the top 10 for 2012-15, and TY makes it for 2017-2022, then Maru simply has to make it for 2013-16. I wouldn't be alone in saying that either, as he even made the TL community GOAT top 10 that coincidently was done around the exact time we're talking about.
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On March 17 2024 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral. So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
I didn't say "right now."
The hypothetical question is correct for the following scenarios which is why it's so obvious -right now -career peak -career average level -generally any year between 2018-2024
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Can anyone provide another example of an individual sport/activity/skill/etc. that someone is considered the greatest ever to perform BLANK and has never won a world championship in BLANK?
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One must applaud Miz's work even when not agreeing with the conclusion(s). I can grudgingly accept Maru as #1 from pre-Katowice 2024 perspective, but not after that anymore. However, biggest issue for me is absence of Dark from the list, that invalidates a lot of objectivity and integrity of application of chosen evaluation criteria.. Also, would've been fair to list Serral's achievements using same format than what was used for every other player, instead of just putting a link to liquidpedia. Maybe that was too impressive and too much consuming to get compiled and published, maybe even too revealing in a sense...
Good thing is that for few years activity in levels of debate haven't been this 'healthy' around SC2, and if this kind series of articles create renewed interest to the game and brings new blood within the community, who can really complain.
Opinion piece is opinion piece, each have their own. That's how I take it.
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On March 17 2024 10:21 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2024 10:07 Balnazza wrote:On March 17 2024 09:24 Fango wrote: Maru could have retired the day before Serral went full time (end of 2017 I think?) and would have probably still made this list.
If Rain and TY made it, then Maru from 2013-2017 definitely would have.
A lot of this discussion just makes me believe that pre-2018 Maru was extremely underrated by the community. It checks out because he never played internationally like INno or Taeja did, and most people didn't watch Proleague.
You can easily do the opposite: People tend to completly overrate pre-2018 Maru because of hindsight. He would have quite the trouble to be in a Top 10 GOAT-list pre-2018, mostly carried by his hard to quantify Proleague-results. If you look at the WCS Korea standings 2016 and '17, Maru wasn't even in the Top 10 (he actually wasn't in the Top 20 in '16). So there is quite the dip in results at the beginning of LotV. And yes, I double-checked that because honestly, I couldn't believe it. I knew he missed a couple of BlizzCons but I didn't think it was that bad. It goes back again to how he never played in international events. It was pretty hard to make those Blizzcons off GSL and Proleague. While viOLet and duckdeok could get in farming europe. It wasn't like modern sc2 where those international events were the peak of sc2, Proleague was literally what player's were paid for. I broke it down in one of the previous threads but Maru was genuinely the best Starleague player in HotS. He was tied with INno and Classic for wins, but outperformed both of them in double or more seasons, and had better winrates than both of them. Not to mention his ridiculous Proleague runs (which I agree is had to quantify, but like the dude almost broke Flash's record 2010 winrate) If Rain makes the top 10 for 2012-15, and TY makes it for 2017-2022, then Maru simply has to make it for 2013-16. I wouldn't be alone in saying that either, as he even made the TL community GOAT top 10 that coincidently was done around the exact time we're talking about.
I'm specifically talking about the Korean Standings. In 2016/17 region lock was already in place, so only very few koreans managed to qualify for BlizzCon through the Global Standings. And what are you on about with the "he didn't play international events"? Okay, 2016 was really hard to qualify because it had so few korean tournaments (though Maru managed to miss both SSLs that year), but in 2017 he was in every event but one that gave out points - he just didn't perform well enough.
I have to read that breakdown then, but I wouldn't put him "clearly above" the other two. I just gave the WCS points for the HotS-BlizzCons a quick look and I think Innovation outperformed Maru in two out of three or something like that? Sure, not only Starleague, but also not super-international heavy either. As for Proleague: It really depends how high you want to rate it. But for me it is always a bit weird how much people give it weight considering it is literally a Bo1. If any other big tournament would use Bo1, you would probably discard it as "too random". Not to mention the influence your team-situation can have on the entire thing. WTL for example feels much more comparable, considering that most teams usually use the same 3-player-core. While Maru had ample opportunity to play for Jin Air, players like Innovation usually got rotated around more or even missed matches because of the system.
Lastly, the thread you posted: Sure, Maru made it (though I think that was right after he won WESG and that probably gave it a huge push). But he was ridiculously behind Innovation - at the beginning of 2018. If he was "the best Starleague player in HotS", wouldn't that have to be much closer?
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On March 17 2024 11:58 Cactus66 wrote: Can anyone provide another example of an individual sport/activity/skill/etc. that someone is considered the greatest ever to perform BLANK and has never won a world championship in BLANK? Donald Bradman
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I kinda wish the Serral and Maru articles were combined since they were released at the same time. Everyone is talking about the same things, but the discussion is split into two separate threads >.>
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Team house era sc2 doesn’t look like high quality gameplay compared to now, because the mechanics of players have improved so much. But when players are practicing 10 to 16 hours a day, it is incredibly hard to compete unless you’re doing that yourself. I believe during the Proleague time where teams required players to practice an outrageous amount, should be weighted.
No European could win in team house era because of a few reasons. It is expensive to replicate the team house structure outside of South Korea. You have to practice with the best, Korean teams had the structure and the best players at the time. It is no surprise Serral emerged dominate after the era of team leagues. While Maru was winning tournaments then, and continued to add trophies after too
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On March 17 2024 14:50 Mutaller wrote: Team house era sc2 doesn’t look like high quality gameplay compared to now, because the mechanics of players have improved so much. But when players are practicing 10 to 16 hours a day, it is incredibly hard to compete unless you’re doing that yourself. I believe during the Proleague time where teams required players to practice an outrageous amount, should be weighted.
No European could win in team house era because of a few reasons. It is expensive to replicate the team house structure outside of South Korea. You have to practice with the best, Korean teams had the structure and the best players at the time. It is no surprise Serral emerged dominate after the era of team leagues. While Maru was winning tournaments then, and continued to add trophies after too
Except Serral didn't "emerge" because team houses went away. It was because he finished school and chose to go full time. And he still became the best, despite not being immersed in Korean SC2 which was still by far the most competitive environment when he rose to dominance. So I don't think you can say with any certainty that he wouldn't have been just as good even if team houses were still widespread, since his dominance was unrelated to being in the best training environment. We can't even be positive that team houses were the best training environment since ByuN won back to back GSL and World Championship while being teamless, and TaeJa frequently dominated top Koreans that were living in teamhouses in weekenders which are the biggest test of raw skill (not planning). Just because the best players were picked up by teams that had team houses doesn't mean their success came from team houses. Correlation =/= causation.
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serral > maru
rogue > maru
maru can lose oliveria in IEM katowice final
maru sucks
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Maru has never won the Kawotice and WCS championships.
2018 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Rogue 3:2 in the semifinals.
2018 wcs: Maru suffered a shocking defeat of 0-3 against sOs in the quarterfinals, which could be considered the second biggest upset in StarCraft 2 history (The first biggest upset was in the 2023 katowice finals).
2019 iem: Maru was knocked out in the group stage.
2019 wcs: Maru was eliminated by Dark 3-0 in the quarterfinals
2020 iem: Maru lost 2-3 to Rogue in the semifinals.
2021 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Reynor 3:2 in the semifinals.
2022 iem: this time, Maru finally met Serral. Without surprise, Maru was eliminated by Serral with a score of 3-1.
2023 iem: Maru suffered the biggest upset in history, being defeated with ease 4-1 by Oliveria in the finals. Oliveria became the biggest dark horse in StarCraft 2 history, while Maru became a mere backdrop.
2023 gamer8: Maru was eliminated by Clem in the quarterfinals with a score of 3-1.
2024 iem: Maru faced Serral in the finals and was easily swept 4-0 by Serral
If the opponent is Serral, then Maru would be easily defeated.
If the opponent is Reynor or Rogue, then Maru would be reversed.
If the opponent is Terran such as Clem or Oliveria, Maru still loses in the same-race matchup.
Why should Maru be ranked as the number one GOAT?
Maru can never surpass Serral, not even Rogue.
User was banned for this post.
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On March 17 2024 17:29 Delish wrote: Maru has never won the Kawotice and WCS championships.
2018 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Rogue 3:2 in the semifinals.
2018 wcs: Maru suffered a shocking defeat of 0-3 against sOs in the quarterfinals, which could be considered the second biggest upset in StarCraft 2 history (The first biggest upset was in the 2023 katowice finals).
2019 iem: Maru was knocked out in the group stage.
2019 wcs: Maru was eliminated by Dark 3-0 in the quarterfinals
2020 iem: Maru lost 2-3 to Rogue in the semifinals.
2021 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Reynor 3:2 in the semifinals.
2022 iem: this time, Maru finally met Serral. Without surprise, Maru was eliminated by Serral with a score of 3-1.
2023 iem: Maru suffered the biggest upset in history, being defeated with ease 4-1 by Oliveria in the finals. Oliveria became the biggest dark horse in StarCraft 2 history, while Maru became a mere backdrop.
2023 gamer8: Maru was eliminated by Clem in the quarterfinals with a score of 3-1.
2024 iem: Maru faced Serral in the finals and was easily swept 4-0 by Serral
If the opponent is Serral, then Maru would be easily defeated.
If the opponent is Reynor or Rogue, then Maru would be reversed.
If the opponent is Terran such as Clem or Oliveria, Maru still loses in the same-race matchup.
Why should Maru be ranked as the number one GOAT?
Maru can never surpass Serral, not even Rogue.
because 2013 proleague bro
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On March 17 2024 17:34 Comedy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2024 17:29 Delish wrote: Maru has never won the Kawotice and WCS championships.
2018 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Rogue 3:2 in the semifinals.
2018 wcs: Maru suffered a shocking defeat of 0-3 against sOs in the quarterfinals, which could be considered the second biggest upset in StarCraft 2 history (The first biggest upset was in the 2023 katowice finals).
2019 iem: Maru was knocked out in the group stage.
2019 wcs: Maru was eliminated by Dark 3-0 in the quarterfinals
2020 iem: Maru lost 2-3 to Rogue in the semifinals.
2021 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Reynor 3:2 in the semifinals.
2022 iem: this time, Maru finally met Serral. Without surprise, Maru was eliminated by Serral with a score of 3-1.
2023 iem: Maru suffered the biggest upset in history, being defeated with ease 4-1 by Oliveria in the finals. Oliveria became the biggest dark horse in StarCraft 2 history, while Maru became a mere backdrop.
2023 gamer8: Maru was eliminated by Clem in the quarterfinals with a score of 3-1.
2024 iem: Maru faced Serral in the finals and was easily swept 4-0 by Serral
If the opponent is Serral, then Maru would be easily defeated.
If the opponent is Reynor or Rogue, then Maru would be reversed.
If the opponent is Terran such as Clem or Oliveria, Maru still loses in the same-race matchup.
Why should Maru be ranked as the number one GOAT?
Maru can never surpass Serral, not even Rogue. because 2013 proleague bro
This is the biggest joke I've ever heard, it's ridiculous that an OSL champion is worth so much. Maru is like LeBron, really don't want to touch the first person in history. You people are playing double standards shamelessly.
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the statistic that would really interest me is how much % of the people complaing about Maru at #1 have actually read the article.
Even if you think Serral is ahead I think Miz gives pretty convincing arguments. At least more convincing than "2013 proleague bro" or "Serral has won 0 GSL bro"
I don't think either opinion of Maru or Serral at the top would be outrageously wrong
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On March 17 2024 05:51 Nakajin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2024 05:26 jinjin5000 wrote:On March 17 2024 05:15 Nakajin wrote:On March 3a2024 04:58 jinjin5000 wrote:On March 17 2024 04:54 Nakajin wrote:On March 17 2024 04:39 jinjin5000 wrote: while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going. The two aren't comparable. Sure teahouses and proleague stopped and a lot of progamer retired, there's no denying the field became a lot is tinner. But SC2 competition was (and arguably still is) very much alive. Post 2017 is also when there was the most amount of money, to earn. Maru, Dark and Rogue became millionaires in their post-Kespa days, it's not BW where's there barely 100k$ a year up for grabs. We talk about retirement, but there is way less retirement post-2017 compared to the 2011-2016 period, on the contrary, we see players stick with SC2 all the way to military for the first time since it finally makes sense to have it as a long time commitment. Well tbf, for BW side, there's still incentive for them to keep up competition on streaming (even if it transitioned into personality streams) in forms of major proleague and 1v1 spons which make up sizable part of the income. You can say its bit comparative in that department where both games have forms of serious competition/playing for prize money. I can't say I'm very versed into the streamer-proleague world of BW, but my understanding is that it's more players and streamers playing showmatches so that everyone make money after after a couple weeks/months, am I far off? I think from the outside looking in, it can be easy to think SC2 players don't practice since it's way less visible than before, but I'd be curious to know if practice time truly fell off by that much. For example, just a couple of years back in 2021, Zest played almost 900 professional matches on top of a shit-ton of ladder, that's some Kespa-level workload if I've ever seen one. I think its quite similar in sense that both sides are playing competitive games but w/o teamhouse infrastructure supporting them and both scenes don't have new blood coming in, lessening the overall competition/pressure. Both games have very limited pro-player pool exacerbating to this issue. SC2, you have online tournaments and foreign tournaments, but you no longer have the benefit of teamhouse support with dedicated coaching team and competition level as well as facing opponents who prepared specifically vs them with teamhouse support behind them. BW, you have progamers splitting between competitive 1v1, proleague format and streaming/non-competitive content. They also no longer have dedicated team behind them keeping their shape up, but is compensated by faster revolving meta due to sharing knowledge and all, but its quite clear that they are not at their peak mechanically wise. Even with number of games, it's quite comparable with someone like light in BW roughly playing 1527 competitive spon games last 1 year with 580 games of it being major proleague, not counting their practice games. I think both scenes have quite comparable levels of competitive games going on, with BW having bit less since they also split time to focusing on streaming content and SC2 progamers not streaming much at all, but self-employment/motivation thing applies to both imo, as well as limited competitiveness in scene and player pool. both SC2 and SC1 progamers use customs using their own connections/friends to practice their own preparation for tournaments when they are preparing seriously off-stream, and both sides use ladder as filler in-between which isn't the best practice environment comapred to dedicated customs/teamhouse environment Good points, I get where you are coming from. I'm still not ready at all to discard post 2016 results though. I think it's because in SC2, even at the peak of the Kespa, we've always had players compete and get to a very high level outside of teamhouses while in BW everything was funneled into the Kespa system so the demarcation is bigger. I'm not saying there isn't a big pre-post Kespa shutdown, but for me, it was just a transformation of the environment players had to adapt to rather than the end of the competitive era.
Transformation of environment impacts the overall competitiveness a lot though. Just after shutdown around 2017/18 was very competitive times but the environment eventually became too thin of playerpool/not enough competition really.
As for prizepool being large, BW has same thing oing where progamers are earning more than they did during progaming days by a large margin. Here's example of just Major Proleague earnings from daily viewer funded tournament setting + Show Spoiler +
There's 20+ people earning 6figure+ in BW during year of 2023 from just major proleague alone. And that's without their other streaming/1v1 spons/other stuff.
but amount of money/fans doesn't really mean the competitiveness rose up though. It's still basically similar set of players with very slow cycle of "new" players coming in. I don't think it's in any way comparable to proleague days when there were constant influx of new pool and constant fight to stay on top of their team. As streamers/freelance, you just don't have that environment anymore and are more prone to losing that edge really. Also lack of complete support counts too.
I believe same applies for SC2 too
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Poland3747 Posts
On March 17 2024 08:54 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2024 08:47 InfCereal wrote:On March 17 2024 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral. So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for Maru's never been better than serral's current form. Which means he's not the greatest of all time, no? I'm eager to hear how you compare player skill across different eras One way would be to look at aligulac rating and difference margin when at #1 to #2and rest. That's a factor used in chess. Fischer exploded with greatest margin ever, Kasparov maintained significant margin across long period of time. Carlson margin is relatively small at times but it was disrupted by introduction of superhuman computers analysis. Sc2 is still in disrupted.
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On March 17 2024 18:40 nimdil wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2024 08:54 Charoisaur wrote:On March 17 2024 08:47 InfCereal wrote:On March 17 2024 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral. So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for Maru's never been better than serral's current form. Which means he's not the greatest of all time, no? I'm eager to hear how you compare player skill across different eras One way would be to look at aligulac rating and difference margin when at #1 to #2and rest. That's a factor used in chess. Fischer exploded with greatest margin ever, Kasparov maintained significant margin across long period of time. Carlson margin is relatively small at times but it was disrupted by introduction of superhuman computers analysis. Sc2 is still in disrupted. Many flaws with this approach, aligulac is a questionable rating system with many flaws and it also doesn't consider the strength of the era. A scene with 150 fulltime pros and 15 championship contenders is way easier to dominate than a scene with 30 fulltime pros and 5 championship contenders
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Poland3747 Posts
On March 17 2024 13:03 Cricketer12 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2024 11:58 Cactus66 wrote: Can anyone provide another example of an individual sport/activity/skill/etc. that someone is considered the greatest ever to perform BLANK and has never won a world championship in BLANK? Donald Bradman Also Tennis. Obviously there's no world championship but neither Federer nor Djokovic has won Olympics. Of course if you consider end year finals as WC... But nobody does. Of course the problem is that I think Federer was the first goat contender to even really care about Olympics. And arguably grand slam are more prestigious.
Of course it is hard to point out too many other examples because most sports are organized with either WC or Olympics at the center. Małysz for example is considered in the GOAT conversation for ski jumping but he hasn't won Olympics gold. He did win World championship events. But of course most sports have central international body that organizes the sport in such a way. StarCraft is peculiar because Korea is obviously source for most top talent and they're centered around themselves (GSL)
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