EPTThis time around we have on someone who's career goes so far beyond just StarCraft. Starting out in FPS titles like Quake and Counter Strike, before bringing his journalistic talents to titles like LoL, and SC2, among others, over the years. Duncan "Thorin" Shields is one of the most outspoken, yet respected and experienced voices in the Esports world. With all the GOAT debating that has been flying around the StarCraft commununity, I figured an outside, yet familiar perspective is just what we needed. Thorin gave me his full attention and loads of his time, so please, watch, enjoy, and let me know what you all think! If you like it, be sure to tune in for part 2!
Thorin: Sorry Serral Fans GSL is the Gold Standard
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StarcraftHistorian
United States154 Posts
This time around we have on someone who's career goes so far beyond just StarCraft. Starting out in FPS titles like Quake and Counter Strike, before bringing his journalistic talents to titles like LoL, and SC2, among others, over the years. Duncan "Thorin" Shields is one of the most outspoken, yet respected and experienced voices in the Esports world. With all the GOAT debating that has been flying around the StarCraft commununity, I figured an outside, yet familiar perspective is just what we needed. Thorin gave me his full attention and loads of his time, so please, watch, enjoy, and let me know what you all think! If you like it, be sure to tune in for part 2! | ||
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Nasigil
137 Posts
When the entire league of players have a negative (often lopsided) h2h record against this one player for years, he just doesn't need to compete in such league to prove himself anymore. Just like Maru doesn't need any WCS NA title to prove himself. Some people like to point to Reynor's lack of results in GSL, but if you dig a bit into it you will find that Reynor's h2h record against almost every single top Korean hovers around 50%, while Serral's numbers are consistently around 70-90% (as seem in Mizenhauer's article), there's quite a substantial gap between him and Serral in terms of how they perform against Korean players. So not having GSL success is an argument against Reynor, but not Serral. It's simple math. | ||
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argonautdice
Canada2719 Posts
On March 19 2024 00:28 Nasigil wrote: GSL is gold standard unless it's involved in discussion about Serral. When the entire league of players have a negative (often lopsided) h2h record against this one player for years, he just doesn't need to compete in such league to prove himself anymore. Just like Maru doesn't need any WCS NA title to prove himself. Some people like to point to Reynor's lack of results in GSL, but if you dig a bit into it you will find that Reynor's h2h record against almost every single top Korean hovers around 50%, while Serral's numbers are consistently around 70-90% (as seem in Mizenhauer's article), there's quite a substantial gap between him and Serral in terms of how they perform against Korean players. So not having GSL success is an argument against Reynor, but not Serral. It's simple math. In terms of style I find Serral more similar to a stronger Neeb, and Neeb got to Top 4 in GSL on his first try in 2018, so I wouldn't have been surprised if Serral Royal Road'd GSL since his rise in 2018. | ||
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lokol4890
114 Posts
On March 19 2024 00:28 Nasigil wrote: GSL is gold standard unless it's involved in discussion about Serral. When the entire league of players have a negative (often lopsided) h2h record against this one player for years, he just doesn't need to compete in such league to prove himself anymore. Just like Maru doesn't need any WCS NA title to prove himself. Some people like to point to Reynor's lack of results in GSL, but if you dig a bit into it you will find that Reynor's h2h record against almost every single top Korean hovers around 50%, while Serral's numbers are consistently around 70-90% (as seem in Mizenhauer's article), there's quite a substantial gap between him and Serral in terms of how they perform against Korean players. So not having GSL success is an argument against Reynor, but not Serral. It's simple math. Always find it funny that based on liquipedia, serral has a losing record against rogue. Weird how no one ever mentions that | ||
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Fango
United Kingdom8987 Posts
On March 19 2024 00:28 Nasigil wrote: GSL is gold standard unless it's involved in discussion about Serral. When the entire league of players have a negative (often lopsided) h2h record against this one player for years, he just doesn't need to compete in such league to prove himself anymore. Just like Maru doesn't need any WCS NA title to prove himself. sOs has as many World Championship titles as Serral and never won GSL. Rogue won every international tournament he entered for almost a year straight, and still took nearly 20 attempts to bag GSL. It's a different format of tournament, players skill peak is higher in Starleagues than weekend tournaments because they can practice one matchup and plan a series for a week in advance. Just because Serral wins international tournaments doesn't guarantee he would win GSL. And even if it did, he never actually did it. If Maru had never played in World Championships, you'd be saying he would have clearly won several... | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10366 Posts
On March 19 2024 01:20 Fango wrote: sOs has as many World Championship titles as Serral and never won GSL. Rogue won every international tournament he entered for almost a year straight, and still took nearly 20 attempts to bag GSL. It's a different format of tournament, players skill peak is higher in Starleagues than weekend tournaments because they can practice one matchup and plan a series for a week in advance. Just because Serral wins international tournaments doesn't guarantee he would win GSL. And even if it did, he never actually did it. If Maru had never played in World Championships, you'd be saying he would have clearly won several... I don't think he'd say that. WCS > GSL. It's a world championship with lots more money and glory than a regional qualifier to the WCS. Serral is winning the biggest tournaments and has a very dominant H2H vs top pros. Like he said, Maru doesn't need to prove himself at WCS NA. However, he does need to prove that he can win a WC, which is above a GSL. Serral proves he can win WCs and international premieres that he enters, including KR tournaments like GSL vs the World. You can extrapolate that he would do very well in GSL from that, but not the other way with Maru. It's true that sOs is a weird case in that he did well at WCs but not as well at GSL. But that doesn't make the WC easier to win or less presitigious than a GSL. While you shouldn't penalize players too much for attempting to compete in more tournaments (at the cost of them risking poor performances that can stain their career), what we have seen is that Maru does well in Starleagues, but struggles (for his skill) at WCs. With Serral, we've seen he does well in all tournaments that he enters. Sure there's no proof that he can win a GSL until he does it, but his portfolio doesn't have the stains that Maru has. If Maru can't win a WC after we see him try many times, we shouldn't be penalizing Serral for not proving he can win a GSL more hard than Maru's proven failures. | ||
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Harstem
Netherlands263 Posts
On March 19 2024 01:03 lokol4890 wrote: Always find it funny that based on liquipedia, serral has a losing record against rogue. Weird how no one ever mentions that No one also ever seems to mention Harstem's winning record against serral. Maybe because it isn't true or maybe because the mainstream media is trying to push a pro serral narrative. EDIT: No one probably mentions it because it isn't true. | ||
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darklycid
3517 Posts
On March 19 2024 02:34 Harstem wrote: No one also ever seems to mention Harstem's winning record against serral. Maybe because it isn't true or maybe because the mainstream media is trying to push a pro serral narrative. EDIT: No one probably mentions it because it isn't true. I will fight for your winning record anyways my captain. | ||
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland4228 Posts
Still feels like Serral has the upper hand, ever if extremely slightly, over Maru and Rogue. Great interview, nonetheless. Thorin is definitely one of the best (and spiciest) minds to ever work in e-sports. | ||
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lokol4890
114 Posts
On March 19 2024 02:34 Harstem wrote: No one also ever seems to mention Harstem's winning record against serral. Maybe because it isn't true or maybe because the mainstream media is trying to push a pro serral narrative. EDIT: No one probably mentions it because it isn't true. 13 series on a 6-7 split in favor of Rogue. What series are they missing that they've played?  Special:RunQuery/Match history?title=Special%3ARunQuery%2FMatch history&Head to head query=player%3DSerral&pfRunQueryFormName=Match+history&Head+to+head+query%5Bplayer%5D=Serral&Head+to+head+query%5Bopponent%5D=Rogue&Head+to+head+query%5Bopponentcountry%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bgame%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bltier%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bsdate%5D%5Bday%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bsdate%5D%5Bmonth%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bsdate%5D%5Byear%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bedate%5D%5Bday%5D=18&Head+to+head+query%5Bedate%5D%5Bmonth%5D=03&Head+to+head+query%5Bedate%5D%5Byear%5D=2024&Head+to+head+query%5Bwalkover%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bmatchups%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bmaps%5D=&wpRunQuery=&pf free text= | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26224 Posts
On March 19 2024 03:14 lokol4890 wrote: 13 series on a 6-7 split in favor of Rogue. What series are they missing that they've played? Special:RunQuery/Match history?title=Special%3ARunQuery%2FMatch history&Head to head query=player%3DSerral&pfRunQueryFormName=Match+history&Head+to+head+query%5Bplayer%5D=Serral&Head+to+head+query%5Bopponent%5D=Rogue&Head+to+head+query%5Bopponentcountry%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bgame%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bltier%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bsdate%5D%5Bday%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bsdate%5D%5Bmonth%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bsdate%5D%5Byear%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bedate%5D%5Bday%5D=18&Head+to+head+query%5Bedate%5D%5Bmonth%5D=03&Head+to+head+query%5Bedate%5D%5Byear%5D=2024&Head+to+head+query%5Bwalkover%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bmatchups%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bmaps%5D=&wpRunQuery=&pf free text=Aligulac has them listed, here, it tends to be more reliable than Liquipedia these days. Rogue’s got a pretty decent record there overall. If you filter just for offline Serral stomps him, but this isn’t super fair on Rogue as it removes meaningful games from the Covid-induced online era | ||
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argonautdice
Canada2719 Posts
On March 19 2024 03:14 lokol4890 wrote: 13 series on a 6-7 split in favor of Rogue. What series are they missing that they've played? Special:RunQuery/Match history?title=Special%3ARunQuery%2FMatch history&Head to head query=player%3DSerral&pfRunQueryFormName=Match+history&Head+to+head+query%5Bplayer%5D=Serral&Head+to+head+query%5Bopponent%5D=Rogue&Head+to+head+query%5Bopponentcountry%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bgame%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bltier%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bsdate%5D%5Bday%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bsdate%5D%5Bmonth%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bsdate%5D%5Byear%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bedate%5D%5Bday%5D=18&Head+to+head+query%5Bedate%5D%5Bmonth%5D=03&Head+to+head+query%5Bedate%5D%5Byear%5D=2024&Head+to+head+query%5Bwalkover%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bmatchups%5D=&Head+to+head+query%5Bmaps%5D=&wpRunQuery=&pf free text=Too bad Rogue has never been able to beat Serral in an in person offline tournament. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1248 Posts
Seriously though: I didn't even know Thorin had anything to do with Starcraft. Which doesn't surprise me, considering that I barely follow anything he does. I think he had this "cool streak" when he just tried to be the biggest controversy hog there is in Counterstrike and LoL, which in my book usually registers as "stay the F away, not an expert". (And while I know people won't believe me: The exact same thing holds up if he said anything else.) | ||
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lokol4890
114 Posts
On March 19 2024 03:44 WombaT wrote: Aligulac has them listed, here, it tends to be more reliable than Liquipedia these days. Rogue’s got a pretty decent record there overall. If you filter just for offline Serral stomps him, but this isn’t super fair on Rogue as it removes meaningful games from the Covid-induced online era Counting 15 on aligulac vs the 13 on liquipedia. Is it the team league matches the two matches that liquipedia missed? E: ty for the link btw | ||
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TaKeTV
Germany1199 Posts
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Zealos
United Kingdom3576 Posts
On March 19 2024 04:59 TaKeTV wrote: It WAS the gold standard. It isnt now IMO and hasnt been for several years There is no gold standard now, IMO | ||
Poopi
France12906 Posts
Unfortunately this, there are barely 16 top players in the entire scene left. It’s still in those WCs like events (Katowice and the SA thingy that Reynor won) that the overall level is highest nowadays though, whereas in the past (probably before Covid era?) WCs and GSL were of same difficulty | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26224 Posts
Not that Thorin needs a huge amount of prompting to be good value but you did certainly did contribute to making this yet another fine listen | ||
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StarcraftHistorian
United States154 Posts
On March 19 2024 02:34 Harstem wrote: No one also ever seems to mention Harstem's winning record against serral. Maybe because it isn't true or maybe because the mainstream media is trying to push a pro serral narrative. EDIT: No one probably mentions it because it isn't true. The corporate elite are always trying to push Big Serral! | ||
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StarcraftHistorian
United States154 Posts
On March 19 2024 06:55 WombaT wrote: I mean discussion is focusing on that throwaway Serral/gold standard line but got round to having the full listen. Not that Thorin needs a huge amount of prompting to be good value but you did certainly did contribute to making this yet another fine listen <3 Appreciate this! | ||
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Nasigil
137 Posts
On March 19 2024 01:20 Fango wrote: sOs has as many World Championship titles as Serral and never won GSL. Rogue won every international tournament he entered for almost a year straight, and still took nearly 20 attempts to bag GSL. It's a different format of tournament, players skill peak is higher in Starleagues than weekend tournaments because they can practice one matchup and plan a series for a week in advance. Just because Serral wins international tournaments doesn't guarantee he would win GSL. And even if it did, he never actually did it. If Maru had never played in World Championships, you'd be saying he would have clearly won several... That's why I didn't use Serral's world championships as an argument. I used his win rate against Korean players. With enough sample size, that becomes a compelling argument especially because the only Korean players Serral may run into are usually the best ones that's making far in big international tournaments. His landslide h2h record against every single one of Korean top player (unless you are counting DRG) just cannot be ignored. You can't say that for sOs and Rogue, they are great tournament players but their h2h record against Korean peers are not that outstanding. There are always some players that has positive record against them. For example Innovation absolutely owns Rogue no matter which year they meet. Classic always has sOs' numbers. That means it's much more likely for them to get eliminated by the player that counters their style in a long tournament. There's simply no such player in Korea to counter Serral. And the whole preparation thing is just not an excuse anymore, after Serral's 6 years of dominance run. Any top Koreans knows if they want to achieve anything on international stage they are likely gonna get over Serral first. You are kidding yourself if you think players like Maru, Dark and Rogue don't save their best builds for Serral before tournaments. And it worked to some extend, like Zest's glaive build that caught Serral off-guard in 2020. But it's never long before Serral figures out the counter. Also you might be forgetting that Serral is also capable of preparing against his opponent. The Dark and Maru series from recent Katowice is easy example. They were totally caught off guard by Serral's map specific builds. Am I saying all these to argue "Serral could win 10 GSL if he wants to"? No. I am only saying not participating in GSL is just not an good counter argument for Serral. He has shown the ability of consistently dominating all Korean players online, offline, on international events and on Korean soil, and it's been 6 years. Adding a few days between matches changes nothing at this point. Even Mizenhauer knows not to use "Serral has no GSL" as an argument in his list. He merely said Maru's longevity at top level trumps everything else, which I don't entirely disagree by itself (I am more annoyed by the absence of Dark if he values longevity that much). But in the article he still admitted that after taking everything into account, Serral is the most successful tournament player ever. | ||
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AlexGano
28 Posts
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Charoisaur
Germany16021 Posts
On March 19 2024 11:08 Nasigil wrote: That's why I didn't use Serral's world championships as an argument. I used his win rate against Korean players. With enough sample size, that becomes a compelling argument especially because the only Korean players Serral may run into are usually the best ones that's making far in big international tournaments. His landslide h2h record against every single one of Korean top player (unless you are counting DRG) just cannot be ignored. You can't say that for sOs and Rogue, they are great tournament players but their h2h record against Korean peers are not that outstanding. There are always some players that has positive record against them. For example Innovation absolutely owns Rogue no matter which year they meet. Classic always has sOs' numbers. That means it's much more likely for them to get eliminated by the player that counters their style in a long tournament. There's simply no such player in Korea to counter Serral. And the whole preparation thing is just not an excuse anymore, after Serral's 6 years of dominance run. Any top Koreans knows if they want to achieve anything on international stage they are likely gonna get over Serral first. You are kidding yourself if you think players like Maru, Dark and Rogue don't save their best builds for Serral before tournaments. And it worked to some extend, like Zest's glaive build that caught Serral off-guard in 2020. But it's never long before Serral figures out the counter. Also you might be forgetting that Serral is also capable of preparing against his opponent. The Dark and Maru series from recent Katowice is easy example. They were totally caught off guard by Serral's map specific builds. Am I saying all these to argue "Serral could win 10 GSL if he wants to"? No. I am only saying not participating in GSL is just not an good counter argument for Serral. He has shown the ability of consistently dominating all Korean players online, offline, on international events and on Korean soil, and it's been 6 years. Adding a few days between matches changes nothing at this point. Even Mizenhauer knows not to use "Serral has no GSL" as an argument in his list. He merely said Maru's longevity at top level trumps everything else, which I don't entirely disagree by itself (I am more annoyed by the absence of Dark if he values longevity that much). But in the article he still admitted that after taking everything into account, Serral is the most successful tournament player ever. Hmm I think the "Serral has no GSL" argument is linked to "Serral rose to prominence after sc2 had already declined." Right now GSL really isn't worth that much anymore and there's no point for Serral to compete in there. But that wasn't the case from 2010-2019/20 where GSL was right after world championships the most prestigious tournament and especially between 2013-2016 they were more stacked than any tournament Serral has ever entered. In that context I think it's a legitimate gap in his resumee, especially compared to Maru who won Starleagues during the Kespa era. I know it's not his fault that sc2 declined, however it's also not Maru's fault that Serral started to compete later, so disregarding Maru's Starleague wins in the comparison would be unfair. | ||
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Noa Greenini
265 Posts
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Charoisaur
Germany16021 Posts
On March 19 2024 19:33 Noa Greenini wrote: At some point you just have to look at consistency, win rates vs players and winning tournaments... I guess some people want to use obscure ways to decide their goat and that is up to them :-) As people are mentioning here, Thorin is trying to farm clicks and reactions which most people should see through. Someone mentioned that Serral started winning during the decline of sc2... Well, when did Maru win most of his GSLs? In 2018 when the majority of the Goat contenders were still playing, in fact 8 out of the 10 on this list (you may also exclude Serral because he didn't play GSL, but most people agree that Dark should be above Rain so it stays at 8). Nowadays there are only 2 left, Serral and Maru (3 with Dark). And out of them one struggles with increasing shoulder issues and the other self-admittedly is past his prime and playing worse than he used to. | ||
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MJG
United Kingdom1375 Posts
On March 19 2024 04:59 TaKeTV wrote: It WAS the gold standard. It isnt now IMO and hasnt been for several years LotV isn't gold standard SC2 so it balances out. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26224 Posts
Appreciate the fine content! Hopefully others are giving you the clicks rather than using the thread merely as a springboard to argue on the headline claim! I definitely agree with Thorin on a lot in here, especially on the importance of narrative, characters, rises and falls and comeback trails. Or a foreigner trying to break decades of Korean dominance, that kind of thing. Building off that point, WTL has been something that’s never gripped me, and to a degree Proleague too. Although I do like and appreciate both, more than many. WTL just because there’s too much flux, players move around a lot. It’s difficult to get attached to a team because of this so harder to emotionally invest. Proleague I think the problem was what it came alongside, and what had came before. SC2 was different from BW, and not just because it was bigger outside of Korea than in. We’d moved to a more open ecosystem, the scenes intermingled more. The bread and butter for most fans was those big weekender tournaments, be they in Europe, the US or occasionally elsewhere. Folks got excited by an Mvp turning up, or endeared to MC for his swagger and memorable lines from him trying to engage in English. Kespa showed up and just tried to implement what they’d done in BW, which effectively split the scene back into two again, and kind of went against the organic direction of travel and what had largely worked before in SC2. You had a scene that liked the access, that was very driven by a fandom of players rather than teams, and injected something that was quite cloistered and put a team competition above individual leagues. I’m not talking about the player migration, just the structural change. You had that period where it was pretty obvious that a weekender was lacking some of the best players around because they were prioritising Proleague. Or tales that players in deep GSL runs were limited practice due to an important Proleague match taking precedence. Not that these were insurmountable issues but you ended up with folks pulling in different directions. The existing Korean based SC2 teams and leagues, now this new Korean structure and the traditional foreign orgs who ran tournaments. Plus Blizzard too! Just some thoughts building on some of what you guys discussed! | ||
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goldensail
132 Posts
On March 19 2024 04:35 lokol4890 wrote: Counting 15 on aligulac vs the 13 on liquipedia. Is it the team league matches the two matches that liquipedia missed? E: ty for the link btw Rogue vs. Serral was pretty much a coin toss. Bear in mind Rogue retired in 2022 - he's several years older than Serral, and wasn't practising as hard that year as military service approached. Just saw an Artosis video and his view is Rogue at #1 - I like this quote: "there is no undisputed GOAT no matter how hard the fanboys want there to be an undisputed GOAT". | ||
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argonautdice
Canada2719 Posts
On March 20 2024 03:40 goldensail wrote: Rogue vs. Serral was pretty much a coin toss. Bear in mind Rogue retired in 2022 - he's several years older than Serral, and wasn't practising as hard that year as military service approached. Just saw an Artosis video and his view is Rogue at #1 - I like this quote: "there is no undisputed GOAT no matter how hard the fanboys want there to be an undisputed GOAT". In an alternate timeline where Serral decided to not attend high school in 2014 like the top Korean pros he could've been undisputed GOAT if he starts dominating like 3 years earlier. | ||
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Blargh
United States2103 Posts
And I think GSL was the gold standard, and I still believe that 2010->2016 GSLs are as meaningful as the world championship finals, but nowadays the most competitive tournament is one that has both Serral, Clem, Reynor and the koreans. GSL's in the last few years count for very little I feel. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16021 Posts
On March 20 2024 03:51 argonautdice wrote: In an alternate timeline where Serral decided to not attend high school in 2014 like the top Korean pros he could've been undisputed GOAT if he starts dominating like 3 years earlier. Or it would be like with Rogue, that he doesn't win anything until the competition gets a lot thinner. Hypotheticals are irrelevant | ||
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