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On March 26 2024 21:24 DropBear wrote:Also Intrigue ended up being completely right despite the considerable backlash he received at the time. 8 of the top 10 were former Brood War pros on kespa teams.
Too bad none of the top two are former Brood War pros and all the other 8 were all basically B-teamers in Brood War. Intrigue was especially throwing shade on Mvp for being a mediocre BW player who decided to switch to SC2 for money because he wasn't good enough to make money in BW.
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On March 26 2024 21:24 DropBear wrote:I haven't followed sc2 since about 2011 so had no perspective on who was the best. Greatly enjoyed reading through each of the articles and the justifications for each position seemed very reasonable to me. Thank you Mizenhauer for your considerable effort in compiling these and don't let the obnoxious tantrums of the fanboys discourage you too much, people would have been upset no matter who you picked as number 1 or how you ordered people. Also Intrigue ended up being completely right despite the considerable backlash he received at the time. 8 of the top 10 were former Brood War pros on kespa teams.
Is this why Flash and Jaedong are top 2 SC2 GOATs?
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On March 27 2024 08:41 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 21:24 DropBear wrote:I haven't followed sc2 since about 2011 so had no perspective on who was the best. Greatly enjoyed reading through each of the articles and the justifications for each position seemed very reasonable to me. Thank you Mizenhauer for your considerable effort in compiling these and don't let the obnoxious tantrums of the fanboys discourage you too much, people would have been upset no matter who you picked as number 1 or how you ordered people. Also Intrigue ended up being completely right despite the considerable backlash he received at the time. 8 of the top 10 were former Brood War pros on kespa teams. Is this why Flash and Jaedong are top 2 SC2 GOATs?
Adding to this:
Intrigue was saying that if there were other successful A-team players like MVP transitioning, that they would likely be stronger than the ones who transitioned to SC2 who were mediocre or bad at BW. Not just any BW pros.
Many SC2 GOATs were mediocre or nothing special at BW.
So he wasn't really right at all. We didn't suddenly have a scene full of MVP tier players. Just like how Boxer, Nada, and July were good at SC2 but not MVP level.
Also, correlation is not causation. A lot of the GOATs were good enough to be fielded in Proleague, meaning they'd get extra support (practice, coaching, financial, etc.). This kind of support could have helped them get to the next level, whereas others would fall further behind and slowly quit.
Of course, in a new game, it is more likely that those unsuccessful at another esport may be more incentivized to switch and play the new game. I'm sure this is an effect, and I'm sure those players would have a lower potential than picking from a pool of pros who were able to be successful at a similar esport. But many great BW players like Stork and Fantasy as well didn't do great in SC2.
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Northern Ireland25553 Posts
On March 27 2024 12:42 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2024 08:41 Acrofales wrote:On March 26 2024 21:24 DropBear wrote:I haven't followed sc2 since about 2011 so had no perspective on who was the best. Greatly enjoyed reading through each of the articles and the justifications for each position seemed very reasonable to me. Thank you Mizenhauer for your considerable effort in compiling these and don't let the obnoxious tantrums of the fanboys discourage you too much, people would have been upset no matter who you picked as number 1 or how you ordered people. Also Intrigue ended up being completely right despite the considerable backlash he received at the time. 8 of the top 10 were former Brood War pros on kespa teams. Is this why Flash and Jaedong are top 2 SC2 GOATs? Adding to this: Intrigue was saying that if there were other successful A-team players like MVP transitioning, that they would likely be stronger than the ones who transitioned to SC2 who were mediocre or bad at BW. Not just any BW pros. Many SC2 GOATs were mediocre or nothing special at BW. So he wasn't really right at all. We didn't suddenly have a scene full of MVP tier players. Just like how Boxer, Nada, and July were good at SC2 but not MVP level. Also, correlation is not causation. A lot of the GOATs were good enough to be fielded in Proleague, meaning they'd get extra support (practice, coaching, financial, etc.). This kind of support could have helped them get to the next level, whereas others would fall further behind and slowly quit. Of course, in a new game, it is more likely that those unsuccessful at another esport may be more incentivized to switch and play the new game. I'm sure this is an effect, and I'm sure those players would have a lower potential than picking from a pool of pros who were able to be successful at a similar esport. But many great BW players like Stork and Fantasy as well didn't do great in SC2.
I don’t think it’s coincidence that quite a large proportion of that Kespa contingent were not a Flash or a Jaedong looking to climb atop another mountain, nor nobodies. They were pretty solid A-teamers without a breakout individual league performance, or players largely considered amongst the next big things who didn’t get to show it before BW’s Kespa
Pretty much an ideal combination of mechanical and other RTS skills with that hunger to make their mark.
Hell they didn’t come to dominate SC2 but Flash and Jaedong were pretty bloody good, think people sleep on that a little but I guess they were always going to struggle to live up to the hype their previous exploits generated.
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On March 26 2024 18:11 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 13:41 Malinor wrote:
I do not feel the community response has been disappointing or particularly negative. This is such a loaded topic, obviously it creates controversy. One could argue that the creation of such a list in itself has the purpose to create controversy. How could it be any other way? The discussion has also been pretty civil from my point of view.
I would view anything related to this creation as a success for TL.
I agree, it was a huge success. I could have worded things better about the negativity. That's something I got over pretty quickly. However, a number of non sc2 related factors, plus reaching the realization that it was going to be difficult to create the articles I wanted for 15-11 (aka discussing their greatness rather than defending my decision to place them where they were) made finishing the project impossible atm. Part of why the series was a huge success was Wax being involved. His standards are absurdly high and getting the articles to a point where he was satisfied was the most challenging part of the process. It was going to take a lot of time that I didn't have to get there. Luckily, all the information I created isn't going anywhere. So, we'll see what the future brings.
Just out of curiosity, if it turned out to be a great success and you thought it was well-received, what made the experience "less than enjoyable" for you? Did it just turn out to be a bigger undertaking than you initially intended?
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United States1882 Posts
On March 28 2024 11:22 Kitai wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 18:11 Mizenhauer wrote:On March 26 2024 13:41 Malinor wrote:
I do not feel the community response has been disappointing or particularly negative. This is such a loaded topic, obviously it creates controversy. One could argue that the creation of such a list in itself has the purpose to create controversy. How could it be any other way? The discussion has also been pretty civil from my point of view.
I would view anything related to this creation as a success for TL.
I agree, it was a huge success. I could have worded things better about the negativity. That's something I got over pretty quickly. However, a number of non sc2 related factors, plus reaching the realization that it was going to be difficult to create the articles I wanted for 15-11 (aka discussing their greatness rather than defending my decision to place them where they were) made finishing the project impossible atm. Part of why the series was a huge success was Wax being involved. His standards are absurdly high and getting the articles to a point where he was satisfied was the most challenging part of the process. It was going to take a lot of time that I didn't have to get there. Luckily, all the information I created isn't going anywhere. So, we'll see what the future brings. Just out of curiosity, if it turned out to be a great success and you thought it was well-received, what made the experience "less than enjoyable" for you? Did it just turn out to be a bigger undertaking than you initially intended?
My work was basically finished by the time the first article came out. At that point, my responsibilities shifted to doing whatever random task was needed of me to polish them off. So, no, the workload was fine. The process of writing them was great. The fact that it started so much discussion was great. The fact that the quality of the articles was so high was great. It just took up a lot of mental energy, so to speak. Those who know me know how much I care about my work and the toll that took on me was more than expected. That's not to say I wouldn't do this all over again. I was incredible lucky to be given the opportunity. Having gone through it once, I think I'd be be far more prepared than I was this time I around.
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On March 26 2024 21:24 DropBear wrote:I haven't followed sc2 since about 2011 so had no perspective on who was the best. Greatly enjoyed reading through each of the articles and the justifications for each position seemed very reasonable to me. Thank you Mizenhauer for your considerable effort in compiling these and don't let the obnoxious tantrums of the fanboys discourage you too much, people would have been upset no matter who you picked as number 1 or how you ordered people. Also Intrigue ended up being completely right despite the considerable backlash he received at the time. 8 of the top 10 were former Brood War pros on kespa teams.
Yes and No. BW and SC2 has a lot of thing in common while BW is much more mechanically demanding, so naturally BW pros will be transition decently smooth into SC2, at least better than those ex WC3 pros. But both games are still not 100% the same, so the absolute top of BW players (Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, Stork, Fantasy, Jangbi etc) did not become the greatest SC2 players, instead it's the B-teamers ended up having the most success. And the greatest two players of all time in SC2 ended up being two guys that just played SC2 all their life.
The only player that had achieved top success in both games is probably Rain, he was the best Protoss during those highly competitive KeSPA years in SC2, and then changed back to BW and got a ASL and KSL title and multiple finals appearance, has a solid claim to be the best Protoss in BW for a couple years as well.
Other than that, Flash was great in SC2 proleague for one year but didn't have much success in individual tournaments, Jaedong was arguably the best sc2 Zerg in international tournaments for a few months, that's about it.
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On March 28 2024 23:31 Nasigil1 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 21:24 DropBear wrote:I haven't followed sc2 since about 2011 so had no perspective on who was the best. Greatly enjoyed reading through each of the articles and the justifications for each position seemed very reasonable to me. Thank you Mizenhauer for your considerable effort in compiling these and don't let the obnoxious tantrums of the fanboys discourage you too much, people would have been upset no matter who you picked as number 1 or how you ordered people. Also Intrigue ended up being completely right despite the considerable backlash he received at the time. 8 of the top 10 were former Brood War pros on kespa teams. Yes and No. BW and SC2 has a lot of thing in common while BW is much more mechanically demanding, so naturally BW pros will be transition decently smooth into SC2, at least better than those ex WC3 pros. But both games are still not 100% the same, so the absolute top of BW players (Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, Stork, Fantasy, Jangbi etc) did not become the greatest SC2 players, instead it's the B-teamers ended up having the most success. And the greatest two players of all time in SC2 ended up being two guys that just played SC2 all their life. The only player that had achieved top success in both games is probably Rain, he was the best Protoss during those highly competitive KeSPA years in SC2, and then changed back to BW and got a ASL and KSL title and multiple finals appearance, has a solid claim to be the best Protoss in BW for a couple years as well. Other than that, Flash was great in SC2 proleague for one year but didn't have much success in individual tournaments, Jaedong was arguably the best sc2 Zerg in international tournaments for a few months, that's about it.
There's the theory that the players who turned out to be great at sc2 would've been the next generation of top players in BW anyway and surpass the great old time BW players you mentioned anyway, no matter if in BW or SC2.
Not that far-fetched imo because most of them were promising up and coming players in BW like Soulkey, Rain, Inno or TY, and the timespan for players staying at the top was rather short.
So yes, the article turned out to be mostly right, the only thing where he was wrong was that he for some reason assumed the BW players who were at the top then would keep winning forever.
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On March 29 2024 01:48 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2024 23:31 Nasigil1 wrote:On March 26 2024 21:24 DropBear wrote:I haven't followed sc2 since about 2011 so had no perspective on who was the best. Greatly enjoyed reading through each of the articles and the justifications for each position seemed very reasonable to me. Thank you Mizenhauer for your considerable effort in compiling these and don't let the obnoxious tantrums of the fanboys discourage you too much, people would have been upset no matter who you picked as number 1 or how you ordered people. Also Intrigue ended up being completely right despite the considerable backlash he received at the time. 8 of the top 10 were former Brood War pros on kespa teams. Yes and No. BW and SC2 has a lot of thing in common while BW is much more mechanically demanding, so naturally BW pros will be transition decently smooth into SC2, at least better than those ex WC3 pros. But both games are still not 100% the same, so the absolute top of BW players (Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, Stork, Fantasy, Jangbi etc) did not become the greatest SC2 players, instead it's the B-teamers ended up having the most success. And the greatest two players of all time in SC2 ended up being two guys that just played SC2 all their life. The only player that had achieved top success in both games is probably Rain, he was the best Protoss during those highly competitive KeSPA years in SC2, and then changed back to BW and got a ASL and KSL title and multiple finals appearance, has a solid claim to be the best Protoss in BW for a couple years as well. Other than that, Flash was great in SC2 proleague for one year but didn't have much success in individual tournaments, Jaedong was arguably the best sc2 Zerg in international tournaments for a few months, that's about it. There's the theory that the players who turned out to be great at sc2 would've been the next generation of top players in BW anyway and surpass the great old time BW players you mentioned anyway, no matter if in BW or SC2. Not that far-fetched imo because most of them were promising up and coming players in BW like Soulkey, Rain, Inno or TY, and the timespan for players staying at the top was rather short. So yes, the article turned out to be mostly right, the only thing where he was wrong was that he for some reason assumed the BW players who were at the top then would keep winning forever.
Eh, maybe only partially. Like when Flash returned to BW, he remained dominant unlike his stint in SC2. Soulkey and Rain are like the rare exceptions who were successful in both SC2 and BW. Inno and TY are not competitive in BW while most of the successful BW players today who played SC2 were not competitive at all in SC2.
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The main thing is age. If you're older at the transition period like stork, jangbi etc I don't think they would have remained the top players if BW had continued as normal in an alternate universe anyways, much less transitioning to a new game.
Younger players who probably weren't at their peak yet during BW would fare the best in the long run. Like even Zest/Flash/Stats are all older for pros at this point but are a few years younger than some of the top BW players at the time.
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Dark:
2024-02-11 3rd - 4th Premier IEM Katowice 2024 IEM Katowice 2024
2023-11-02 3rd - 4th Premier 2023 Global StarCraft II League Season 3: Code S 2023 Global StarCraft II League Season 3: Code S
2023-07-27 2nd Premier 2023 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S 2023 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S
2022-12-08 2nd Premier 2022 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2 2022 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2
2022-07-21 3rd - 4th Premier 2022 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S 2022 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S
2022-07-03 1st Premier DH SC2 Masters 2022 Valencia DH SC2 Masters 2022 Valencia
2022-04-28 3rd - 4th Premier 2022 Global StarCraft II League Season 1: Code S 2022 Global StarCraft II League Season 1: Code S
2022-01-27 2nd Premier 2022 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 1 2022 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 1
2021-07-29 1st Premier 2021 Global StarCraft II League Season 2 2021 Global StarCraft II League Season 2
2020-03-28 2nd Premier 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 1 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 1
2019-11-01 1st Premier 2019 WCS Global Finals 2019 WCS Global Finals
2019-10-06 1st Premier 2019 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2 2019 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2
2019-09-18 3rd - 4th Premier 2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 3: Code S 2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 3: Code S
2019-06-22 1st Premier 2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S 2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S
2019-04-03 3rd - 4th Premier 2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 1: Code S 2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 1: Code S
2019-03-03 3rd - 4th Premier IEM Season XIII - Katowice IEM Season XIII - Katowice
2018-09-30 3rd - 4th Premier 2018 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2 2018 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2
2018-08-04 3rd - 4th Premier 2018 GSL vs the World 2018 GSL vs the World
2018-04-08 2nd Premier 2018 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 1 2018 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 1
2018-03-24 3rd - 4th Premier 2018 Global StarCraft II League Season 1: Code S 2018 Global StarCraft II League Season 1: Code S
2017-09-09 3rd - 4th Premier 2017 Global StarCraft II League Season 3: Code S 2017 Global StarCraft II League Season 3: Code S
2017-03-05 3rd - 4th Premier IEM Season XI - World Championship IEM Season XI - World Championship
"didn’t win/make deep runs"
Maru's non GSL achievements:
2024-02-11 2nd Premier IEM Katowice 2024 IEM Katowice 2024
2023-02-12 2nd Premier IEM Katowice 2023 IEM Katowice 2023
2022-11-20 3rd - 4th Premier DH SC2 Masters 2022 Atlanta DH SC2 Masters 2022 Atlanta
2022-07-03 2nd Premier DH SC2 Masters 2022 Valencia DH SC2 Masters 2022 Valencia
2022-01-16 1st Premier DH SC2 Masters 2021: Last Chance 2022 DH SC2 Masters 2021: Last Chance 2022
2021-11-14 1st Premier DH SC2 Masters 2021 Winter: Season Finals DH SC2 Masters 2021 Winter: Season Finals
2021-02-28 3rd - 4th Premier IEM Katowice 2021 IEM Katowice 2021
People are upset because your rankings are objectively bad. Dark should be in TOP10. Maru shouldn't be rank 1. Serral and Rogue are 1-2, Maru is 3rd.
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I really liked these stats as they account for opportunity and conversion rate:
We can see that Dark actually hits ro4's more than Rogue, but wins less of them.
I think Maru is solidly #2, Serral is #1, and Dark is a lot higher than #11.
IMO it's more reasonable to place Dark over Rogue than Dark at 11th, but I tend to favor consistency rather than winning stuff occasionally, just too much luck on SC2 tournaments as a whole.
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On March 27 2024 08:14 argonautdice wrote:Too bad none of the top two are former Brood War pros and all the other 8 were all basically B-teamers in Brood War. Intrigue was especially throwing shade on Mvp for being a mediocre BW player who decided to switch to SC2 for money because he wasn't good enough to make money in BW.
Realistically, had Kespa not switched, is it not very possible that soO, INno, Rain, Soulkey, sOs, Zest etc would have been the next generation of BW A-listers? They were all up and coming before the switch.
The idea that Mvp dominated mostly bad BW players who switched for money still stands. None of the other WoL greats could keep up after the switch except PartinG and *that* zerg.
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Dark is the true Kong of SC2. Despite only winning a SSL before his peak in 2019 in the more competitive era, he got silver in 7 Premier tournaments, 2 SSL's, 2 Kespa Cups, 1 Blizzcon, 1 WESG, and 1 Super Tournament, and 5 of these he was literally 1 game away from gold losing 3:4. After a career peak in 2019 where he won a Code S, Blizzcon, and a Super Tournament within 6 months, he won another GSL, TSL6, and DH Valencia, but got 5 more second places in 3 Super tournies, a Code S, and ESL Winter, 3 of which he again lost 3:4. So basically Dark was 8 games away from having 15 Premier championships (5 Super tournies, 3 SSL's, 2 Code S, 1 Blizzcon/WESG/Kespa Cup/DH/TSL). He's also the only one aside from Rogue and Maru to win at least 3 GSL/SSL combined during LotV. And this is not counting the countless Top 4's Dark reached. Dark has basically been a threat to win it all in every tournament since 2015.
If we compare Dark's resume to TY's,
Pre-2015: no notable individual results from either players.
2015: Dark - 2 Kespa Cup silvers, top 4 at IEM World Championship; TY - top 4 at SSL and IEM Shenzhen. Dark wins here
2016: Dark - 1 SSL gold, 1 SSL silver, 1 Blizzcon silver, top 4 at IEM Gyeonggi; TY - 1 code S silver, top 4 at Kespa Cup. Dark wins by a lot here.
2017: Dark - 1 SSL silver, top 4 at IEM world, Code S, super tourney; TY - 1 IEM world gold, 1 WESG gold, 2nd at GSL vs world, top 4 at IEM Shanghai and Blizzcon. TY wins by a lot here.
So for 2015-2017 pre-Maru/Serral hyper-competitive era: Dark barely edges out TY.
2018: Dark - silver in WESG and super tourney, top 4 in GSL vs world and Code S; TY - a silver and a top 4 in Code S. They're about even here.
2019: Dark - gold in GSL, Super tourney, and Blizzcon, top 4 in another GSL, Super tourney, and IEM world; TY - silver in Super tourney. Dark wins by a lot here.
2020: Dark - gold in TSL6, silver in Super tourney; TY - 2 golds in GSL, top 4 in another GSL, Super tourney, and King of Battles. TY wins by a lot here.
Thus for 2018-2020: Dark and TY are about even.
2021-Present: TY basically went to the military and only got a top 4 at DH last chance beforehand and didn't place high anywhere since his return, while Dark won another Code S in 2021, and placed at least top 4 a ton since then, though it's not really a fair comparison, but I still give the slight edge to Dark for winning a Code S in 2021.
And since we seem to value Proleague record as well for the GOAT list,
2012-2013: Dark 0-1, TY 26-26. TY wins.
2014: Dark 6-3, TY 17-12. TY wins.
2015: Dark 17-12, TY 10-11. Dark wins.
2016: Dark 13-12, TY 14-13. Basically tie, though Dark's ace match record is 3-1 while TY is 1-1. and Dark's playoff record is 3-1 while TY is 2-1 (interestingly TY did beat Dark in the ace match here).
Dark was also a strong threat in every season of the WTL series while TY's record was pretty poor, though he only played in 1 season right before military.
So they're about even in team league except the first season of SC2 proleague, but 26-26 is a pretty mediocre record and I can't fault Dark for still getting good at the game just like I can't penalize TY for going to the military.
In conclusion, I think Dark barely edges out TY by the quantity of his high placements, and at best you can say they're tied, and if TY is #8 on the GOAT list, Dark should be top 10 for sure.
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On March 29 2024 02:04 argonautdice wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2024 01:48 Charoisaur wrote:On March 28 2024 23:31 Nasigil1 wrote:On March 26 2024 21:24 DropBear wrote:I haven't followed sc2 since about 2011 so had no perspective on who was the best. Greatly enjoyed reading through each of the articles and the justifications for each position seemed very reasonable to me. Thank you Mizenhauer for your considerable effort in compiling these and don't let the obnoxious tantrums of the fanboys discourage you too much, people would have been upset no matter who you picked as number 1 or how you ordered people. Also Intrigue ended up being completely right despite the considerable backlash he received at the time. 8 of the top 10 were former Brood War pros on kespa teams. Yes and No. BW and SC2 has a lot of thing in common while BW is much more mechanically demanding, so naturally BW pros will be transition decently smooth into SC2, at least better than those ex WC3 pros. But both games are still not 100% the same, so the absolute top of BW players (Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, Stork, Fantasy, Jangbi etc) did not become the greatest SC2 players, instead it's the B-teamers ended up having the most success. And the greatest two players of all time in SC2 ended up being two guys that just played SC2 all their life. The only player that had achieved top success in both games is probably Rain, he was the best Protoss during those highly competitive KeSPA years in SC2, and then changed back to BW and got a ASL and KSL title and multiple finals appearance, has a solid claim to be the best Protoss in BW for a couple years as well. Other than that, Flash was great in SC2 proleague for one year but didn't have much success in individual tournaments, Jaedong was arguably the best sc2 Zerg in international tournaments for a few months, that's about it. There's the theory that the players who turned out to be great at sc2 would've been the next generation of top players in BW anyway and surpass the great old time BW players you mentioned anyway, no matter if in BW or SC2. Not that far-fetched imo because most of them were promising up and coming players in BW like Soulkey, Rain, Inno or TY, and the timespan for players staying at the top was rather short. So yes, the article turned out to be mostly right, the only thing where he was wrong was that he for some reason assumed the BW players who were at the top then would keep winning forever. Eh, maybe only partially. Like when Flash returned to BW, he remained dominant unlike his stint in SC2. Soulkey and Rain are like the rare exceptions who were successful in both SC2 and BW. Inno and TY are not competitive in BW while most of the successful BW players today who played SC2 were not competitive at all in SC2.
Inno and TY were very promising up and coming players. Especially with them the probability that they would've become proper S-tier players had they sticked with bw is imo extremely high. Even now TY qualified for ASL after practicing a couple month after military
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United States1882 Posts
On March 29 2024 05:44 argonautdice wrote:
Dark is the true Kong of SC2. Despite only winning a SSL before his peak in 2019 in the more competitive era, he got silver in 7 Premier tournaments, 2 SSL's, 2 Kespa Cups, 1 Blizzcon, 1 WESG, and 1 Super Tournament, and 5 of these he was literally 1 game away from gold losing 3:4. After a career peak in 2019 where he won a Code S, Blizzcon, and a Super Tournament within 6 months, he won another GSL, TSL6, and DH Valencia, but got 5 more second places in 3 Super tournies, a Code S, and ESL Winter, 3 of which he again lost 3:4. So basically Dark was 8 games away from having 15 Premier championships (5 Super tournies, 3 SSL's, 2 Code S, 1 Blizzcon/WESG/Kespa Cup/DH/TSL). He's also the only one aside from Rogue and Maru to win at least 3 GSL/SSL combined during LotV. And this is not counting the countless Top 4's Dark reached. Dark has basically been a threat to win it all in every tournament since 2015.
If we compare Dark's resume to TY's,
Pre-2015: no notable individual results from either players.
2015: Dark - 2 Kespa Cup silvers, top 4 at IEM World Championship; TY - top 4 at SSL and IEM Shenzhen. Dark wins here
2016: Dark - 1 SSL gold, 1 SSL silver, 1 Blizzcon silver, top 4 at IEM Gyeonggi; TY - 1 code S silver, top 4 at Kespa Cup. Dark wins by a lot here.
2017: Dark - 1 SSL silver, top 4 at IEM world, Code S, super tourney; TY - 1 IEM world gold, 1 WESG gold, 2nd at GSL vs world, top 4 at IEM Shanghai and Blizzcon. TY wins by a lot here.
So for 2015-2017 pre-Maru/Serral hyper-competitive era: Dark barely edges out TY.
2018: Dark - silver in WESG and super tourney, top 4 in GSL vs world and Code S; TY - a silver and a top 4 in Code S. They're about even here.
2019: Dark - gold in GSL, Super tourney, and Blizzcon, top 4 in another GSL, Super tourney, and IEM world; TY - silver in Super tourney. Dark wins by a lot here.
2020: Dark - gold in TSL6, silver in Super tourney; TY - 2 golds in GSL, top 4 in another GSL, Super tourney, and King of Battles. TY wins by a lot here.
Thus for 2018-2020: Dark and TY are about even.
2021-Present: TY basically went to the military and only got a top 4 at DH last chance beforehand and didn't place high anywhere since his return, while Dark won another Code S in 2021, and placed at least top 4 a ton since then, though it's not really a fair comparison, but I still give the slight edge to Dark for winning a Code S in 2021.
And since we seem to value Proleague record as well for the GOAT list,
2012-2013: Dark 0-1, TY 26-26. TY wins.
2014: Dark 6-3, TY 17-12. TY wins.
2015: Dark 17-12, TY 10-11. Dark wins.
2016: Dark 13-12, TY 14-13. Basically tie, though Dark's ace match record is 3-1 while TY is 1-1. and Dark's playoff record is 3-1 while TY is 2-1 (interestingly TY did beat Dark in the ace match here).
Dark was also a strong threat in every season of the WTL series while TY's record was pretty poor, though he only played in 1 season right before military.
So they're about even in team league except the first season of SC2 proleague, but 26-26 is a pretty mediocre record and I can't fault Dark for still getting good at the game just like I can't penalize TY for going to the military.
In conclusion, I think Dark barely edges out TY by the quantity of his high placements, and at best you can say they're tied, and if TY is #8 on the GOAT list, Dark should be top 10 for sure.
The phrase "longevity is a double edged sword" was central to my thinking for the entire series. Dark has had an incredible career in which he has piled up accolade after accolade, but he was mediocre in hots, had a lower three year peak than Stats from 2016-2018 (its also fair to say that between WESG and 3 Code S wins Maru exceeded Dark's achievements during those three years in far less time). After that Dark is a top 5 player, but clearly behind Maru, Serral, Rogue and it's a toss up with Reynor. Dark experienced an uptick in results once TY and Rogue retired, whereas the other players mentioned pretty much kept up their pace. People can disagree, but there's enough nuance in this discussion to say that he ranks fourth when it comes to cumulative achievements and could rank as highly as seven given my methodology, but the length of time it took him to achieve all he did was a negative in my eyes that did more to harm his case than players like soO/Inno/sOs (players that were also held back by their performances at the end of their careers).
You're onto something with your explanation, but one thing has to be corrected. Dark was not a threat to win any events in 2015. He made it to the finals of two KeSPA Cups (losing to soO of all people in the second one), but he didn't even reach the Round of 8 of a Korean Individual League until 2016. He was just an average Proleague player who went 3-1 in two weekenders.
On March 29 2024 02:58 Odoakar wrote:
People are upset because your rankings are objectively bad. Dark should be in TOP10. Maru shouldn't be rank 1. Serral and Rogue are 1-2, Maru is 3rd.
And, this is the downside to the series. Because every time I go to this site I had to see people who speak in absolutes, frequently only use tournament results to communicate their points and resort to insults for no reason at all.
On March 29 2024 06:15 CerebrateHector wrote:
Also, can we stop with this crap about Serral needing to play on Code S?, why does a FINNISH player needs to play on KOREA ? And its not even the most premier tournament
I never said that. In fact, I think anyone who holds this opinion is mistaken.
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A bit disappointed in the community response tbh
Dude, to be honest, you cannot put anything but Serral at first period. Specially after winning Katowize like he did, and 4-0 ing Maru ....
Also, can we stop with this crap about Serral needing to play on Code S?, why does a FINNISH player needs to play on KOREA ? And its not even the most premier tournament
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On March 29 2024 06:09 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2024 05:44 argonautdice wrote:
Dark is the true Kong of SC2. Despite only winning a SSL before his peak in 2019 in the more competitive era, he got silver in 7 Premier tournaments, 2 SSL's, 2 Kespa Cups, 1 Blizzcon, 1 WESG, and 1 Super Tournament, and 5 of these he was literally 1 game away from gold losing 3:4. After a career peak in 2019 where he won a Code S, Blizzcon, and a Super Tournament within 6 months, he won another GSL, TSL6, and DH Valencia, but got 5 more second places in 3 Super tournies, a Code S, and ESL Winter, 3 of which he again lost 3:4. So basically Dark was 8 games away from having 15 Premier championships (5 Super tournies, 3 SSL's, 2 Code S, 1 Blizzcon/WESG/Kespa Cup/DH/TSL). He's also the only one aside from Rogue and Maru to win at least 3 GSL/SSL combined during LotV. And this is not counting the countless Top 4's Dark reached. Dark has basically been a threat to win it all in every tournament since 2015.
If we compare Dark's resume to TY's,
Pre-2015: no notable individual results from either players.
2015: Dark - 2 Kespa Cup silvers, top 4 at IEM World Championship; TY - top 4 at SSL and IEM Shenzhen. Dark wins here
2016: Dark - 1 SSL gold, 1 SSL silver, 1 Blizzcon silver, top 4 at IEM Gyeonggi; TY - 1 code S silver, top 4 at Kespa Cup. Dark wins by a lot here.
2017: Dark - 1 SSL silver, top 4 at IEM world, Code S, super tourney; TY - 1 IEM world gold, 1 WESG gold, 2nd at GSL vs world, top 4 at IEM Shanghai and Blizzcon. TY wins by a lot here.
So for 2015-2017 pre-Maru/Serral hyper-competitive era: Dark barely edges out TY.
2018: Dark - silver in WESG and super tourney, top 4 in GSL vs world and Code S; TY - a silver and a top 4 in Code S. They're about even here.
2019: Dark - gold in GSL, Super tourney, and Blizzcon, top 4 in another GSL, Super tourney, and IEM world; TY - silver in Super tourney. Dark wins by a lot here.
2020: Dark - gold in TSL6, silver in Super tourney; TY - 2 golds in GSL, top 4 in another GSL, Super tourney, and King of Battles. TY wins by a lot here.
Thus for 2018-2020: Dark and TY are about even.
2021-Present: TY basically went to the military and only got a top 4 at DH last chance beforehand and didn't place high anywhere since his return, while Dark won another Code S in 2021, and placed at least top 4 a ton since then, though it's not really a fair comparison, but I still give the slight edge to Dark for winning a Code S in 2021.
And since we seem to value Proleague record as well for the GOAT list,
2012-2013: Dark 0-1, TY 26-26. TY wins.
2014: Dark 6-3, TY 17-12. TY wins.
2015: Dark 17-12, TY 10-11. Dark wins.
2016: Dark 13-12, TY 14-13. Basically tie, though Dark's ace match record is 3-1 while TY is 1-1. and Dark's playoff record is 3-1 while TY is 2-1 (interestingly TY did beat Dark in the ace match here).
Dark was also a strong threat in every season of the WTL series while TY's record was pretty poor, though he only played in 1 season right before military.
So they're about even in team league except the first season of SC2 proleague, but 26-26 is a pretty mediocre record and I can't fault Dark for still getting good at the game just like I can't penalize TY for going to the military.
In conclusion, I think Dark barely edges out TY by the quantity of his high placements, and at best you can say they're tied, and if TY is #8 on the GOAT list, Dark should be top 10 for sure. The phrase "longevity is a double edged sword" was central to my thinking for the entire series. Dark has had an incredible career in which he has piled up accolade after accolade, but he was mediocre in hots, had a lower three year peak than Stats from 2016-2018 (its also fair to say that between WESG and 3 Code S wins Maru exceeded Dark's achievements during those three years in far less time). After that Dark is a top 5 player, but clearly behind Maru, Serral, Rogue and it's a toss up with Reynor. Dark experienced an uptick in results once TY and Rogue retired, whereas the other players mentioned pretty much kept up their pace. People can disagree, but there's enough nuance in this discussion to say that he ranks fourth when it comes to cumulative achievements and could rank as highly as seven given my methodology, but the length of time it took him to achieve all he did was a negative in my eyes that did more to harm his case than players like soO/Inno/sOs (players that were also held back by their performances at the end of their careers). You're onto something with your explanation, but one thing has to be corrected. Dark was not a threat to win any events in 2015. He made it to the finals of two KeSPA Cups (losing to soO of all people in the second one), but he didn't even reach the Round of 8 of a Korean Individual League until 2016. He was just an average Proleague player who went 3-1 in two weekenders. Show nested quote +On March 29 2024 02:58 Odoakar wrote:
People are upset because your rankings are objectively bad. Dark should be in TOP10. Maru shouldn't be rank 1. Serral and Rogue are 1-2, Maru is 3rd. And, this is the downside to the series. Because every time I go to this site I had to see people who speak in absolutes, frequently only use tournament results to communicate their points and resort to insults for no reason at all. Show nested quote +On March 29 2024 06:15 CerebrateHector wrote:
Also, can we stop with this crap about Serral needing to play on Code S?, why does a FINNISH player needs to play on KOREA ? And its not even the most premier tournament
I never said that. In fact, I think anyone who holds this opinion is mistaken.
While everything you say is true, aren't you kinda cherrypicking time periods that make Dark look worse?
He was the best player (or at least had a very good case for being the best player) in 2016 and 2019, so if you would look at individual years instead of the 3-4 year periods you chose he had more years in which he was the best player than many of the players above him in the ranking.
Is it really a negative that he had 2 shorter periods of dominance instead of 1 longer one?
I don't know, I think the criticism here is that it can't really be backed up with data that Dark ranks below TY, soO or Rain and comes down more to "vibes"
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On March 29 2024 07:03 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2024 06:09 Mizenhauer wrote:On March 29 2024 05:44 argonautdice wrote:
Dark is the true Kong of SC2. Despite only winning a SSL before his peak in 2019 in the more competitive era, he got silver in 7 Premier tournaments, 2 SSL's, 2 Kespa Cups, 1 Blizzcon, 1 WESG, and 1 Super Tournament, and 5 of these he was literally 1 game away from gold losing 3:4. After a career peak in 2019 where he won a Code S, Blizzcon, and a Super Tournament within 6 months, he won another GSL, TSL6, and DH Valencia, but got 5 more second places in 3 Super tournies, a Code S, and ESL Winter, 3 of which he again lost 3:4. So basically Dark was 8 games away from having 15 Premier championships (5 Super tournies, 3 SSL's, 2 Code S, 1 Blizzcon/WESG/Kespa Cup/DH/TSL). He's also the only one aside from Rogue and Maru to win at least 3 GSL/SSL combined during LotV. And this is not counting the countless Top 4's Dark reached. Dark has basically been a threat to win it all in every tournament since 2015.
If we compare Dark's resume to TY's,
Pre-2015: no notable individual results from either players.
2015: Dark - 2 Kespa Cup silvers, top 4 at IEM World Championship; TY - top 4 at SSL and IEM Shenzhen. Dark wins here
2016: Dark - 1 SSL gold, 1 SSL silver, 1 Blizzcon silver, top 4 at IEM Gyeonggi; TY - 1 code S silver, top 4 at Kespa Cup. Dark wins by a lot here.
2017: Dark - 1 SSL silver, top 4 at IEM world, Code S, super tourney; TY - 1 IEM world gold, 1 WESG gold, 2nd at GSL vs world, top 4 at IEM Shanghai and Blizzcon. TY wins by a lot here.
So for 2015-2017 pre-Maru/Serral hyper-competitive era: Dark barely edges out TY.
2018: Dark - silver in WESG and super tourney, top 4 in GSL vs world and Code S; TY - a silver and a top 4 in Code S. They're about even here.
2019: Dark - gold in GSL, Super tourney, and Blizzcon, top 4 in another GSL, Super tourney, and IEM world; TY - silver in Super tourney. Dark wins by a lot here.
2020: Dark - gold in TSL6, silver in Super tourney; TY - 2 golds in GSL, top 4 in another GSL, Super tourney, and King of Battles. TY wins by a lot here.
Thus for 2018-2020: Dark and TY are about even.
2021-Present: TY basically went to the military and only got a top 4 at DH last chance beforehand and didn't place high anywhere since his return, while Dark won another Code S in 2021, and placed at least top 4 a ton since then, though it's not really a fair comparison, but I still give the slight edge to Dark for winning a Code S in 2021.
And since we seem to value Proleague record as well for the GOAT list,
2012-2013: Dark 0-1, TY 26-26. TY wins.
2014: Dark 6-3, TY 17-12. TY wins.
2015: Dark 17-12, TY 10-11. Dark wins.
2016: Dark 13-12, TY 14-13. Basically tie, though Dark's ace match record is 3-1 while TY is 1-1. and Dark's playoff record is 3-1 while TY is 2-1 (interestingly TY did beat Dark in the ace match here).
Dark was also a strong threat in every season of the WTL series while TY's record was pretty poor, though he only played in 1 season right before military.
So they're about even in team league except the first season of SC2 proleague, but 26-26 is a pretty mediocre record and I can't fault Dark for still getting good at the game just like I can't penalize TY for going to the military.
In conclusion, I think Dark barely edges out TY by the quantity of his high placements, and at best you can say they're tied, and if TY is #8 on the GOAT list, Dark should be top 10 for sure. The phrase "longevity is a double edged sword" was central to my thinking for the entire series. Dark has had an incredible career in which he has piled up accolade after accolade, but he was mediocre in hots, had a lower three year peak than Stats from 2016-2018 (its also fair to say that between WESG and 3 Code S wins Maru exceeded Dark's achievements during those three years in far less time). After that Dark is a top 5 player, but clearly behind Maru, Serral, Rogue and it's a toss up with Reynor. Dark experienced an uptick in results once TY and Rogue retired, whereas the other players mentioned pretty much kept up their pace. People can disagree, but there's enough nuance in this discussion to say that he ranks fourth when it comes to cumulative achievements and could rank as highly as seven given my methodology, but the length of time it took him to achieve all he did was a negative in my eyes that did more to harm his case than players like soO/Inno/sOs (players that were also held back by their performances at the end of their careers). You're onto something with your explanation, but one thing has to be corrected. Dark was not a threat to win any events in 2015. He made it to the finals of two KeSPA Cups (losing to soO of all people in the second one), but he didn't even reach the Round of 8 of a Korean Individual League until 2016. He was just an average Proleague player who went 3-1 in two weekenders. On March 29 2024 02:58 Odoakar wrote:
People are upset because your rankings are objectively bad. Dark should be in TOP10. Maru shouldn't be rank 1. Serral and Rogue are 1-2, Maru is 3rd. And, this is the downside to the series. Because every time I go to this site I had to see people who speak in absolutes, frequently only use tournament results to communicate their points and resort to insults for no reason at all. On March 29 2024 06:15 CerebrateHector wrote:
Also, can we stop with this crap about Serral needing to play on Code S?, why does a FINNISH player needs to play on KOREA ? And its not even the most premier tournament
I never said that. In fact, I think anyone who holds this opinion is mistaken. While everything you say is true, aren't you kinda cherrypicking time periods that make Dark look worse? He was the best player (or at least had a very good case for being the best player) in 2016 and 2019, so if you would look at individual years instead of the 3-4 year periods you chose he had more years in which he was the best player than many of the players above him in the ranking. Is it really a negative that he had 2 shorter periods of dominance instead of 1 longer one? I don't know, I think the criticism here is that it can't really be backed up with data that Dark ranks below TY, soO or Rain and comes down more to "vibes"
Yeah, one could use "longevity is a double edged sword" when argue for something like Mvp over Dark, and I can respect that opinion, but argonautdice made a very convincing comparison showing that both in terms of peak and longevity, TY has a very similar or slightly worse career than Dark before 2021, then TY retires but Dark remained a top Zerg for three more years until today, so I really struggle to think of a good reason to place TY at #8 and Dark out of top 10.
Also it's not like Dark just rakes up a good overall resume by staying around the top for a long time but never considered the best (aka Solar), he had a pretty solid argument to be the best player in the world in 2016 and 2019, so dude had really good peaks, it's just not a long as those actual GOAT candidates. Ant to think how many heart breaking premier finals that he lost by 3:4 (eight times, unbelievable), Dark is a lot closer to be an actual GOAT candidate than you think.
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On March 29 2024 03:59 LostUsername100 wrote:I really liked these stats as they account for opportunity and conversion rate: We can see that Dark actually hits ro4's more than Rogue, but wins less of them. I think Maru is solidly #2, Serral is #1, and Dark is a lot higher than #11. IMO it's more reasonable to place Dark over Rogue than Dark at 11th, but I tend to favor consistency rather than winning stuff occasionally, just too much luck on SC2 tournaments as a whole.
Thank you! I always wanted to see a graph like this.
A lot of clueless people like to say Serral only has good numbers because he "farms regionlock tournaments", but this stats shows that even if you simply discount Serral's EU stuff and only focus on his international results, he still has the most successful and dominant career compared to anyone. Highest tournament conversion rate in terms of wins, finals and semifinals appearance, and highest win rate against top players. And the difference is quite staggering especially compared to Maru and Rogue.
If you think Mvp's one and half year peak is so impressive that it still lands him in #4 after all these years, think about it, Serral has been consistently doing better than that for 6 straight years.
The only argument against him is that he was born too late and didn't compete in the KeSPA era. That's fine. But anyone still using "but he has no GSL" as an argument just really don't know what they are talking about.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/3SwLqAT.png)
