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On May 12 2024 19:08 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 18:38 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 12:38 tigera6 wrote:On May 12 2024 10:25 Pandain wrote:
None of that is true anymore. Yes, Koreans writ large are way better than foreigners writ large. But it's undisputed that the absolute best foreigners are killers. Koreans have not won a single premier international offline event since 2022 DH Atlanta. Even right now, if you asked me for the top five players in the world, foreigners are going to be three of them (Serral, Clem, Maxpax). You honestly could even argue that Serral/Clem/Maxpax are each stronger than Maru overall (Maxpax is the more questionable one but it's more than plausible), meaning that even when Maru won the last GSL he could still only be the fourth best player in the world.
When Maru (or Solar, or whoever) wins a GSL now, it doesn't mean much beyond that they won a very difficult tournament. And maybe it means they are the best Korean at that point. That's awesome. But it no longer means they are the best in the world.
When you want to see the absolute highest level of play, it's going to be at a premier international event. And if you want to know who is really the absolute best player in the world, it's also going to be at a premier international event. GSL no longer is that tournament. This is the "dismissive" attitude that I feel from certain EU fans, or some known caster. So just because EU won 4 offline international tournament in a row (2 ESL, Gamers8 and IEM), now they are automatically better than KR at the top? So when KR won 2 offline ESL in 2022 and none of EU making it to top4 in IEM last year, did we shit talk the EU top for that too? It would only be true if EU players come in and just dominate KR, but aside Serral I havent seen other top EU player done that consistently enough. There are so many things that went into a tournament result, thats why its hard to just pick a certain period or tournament and call it how things will be from now on. By your definition, Clem was the best player in the world after winning Atlanta until he lost to Serral in IEM? And hes still the best Terran in the world because no other Terran has won international event since then? And imho, the Seasonal offline events are to promote the most amount of games, not the best quality of games. Winning 2 bo3 in the Winner Bracket (one possibly against a low seed player) guarantee the spot in the playoff, while the rest have to play from the Knockout Bracket with zero seeding is not the best format. I have always believe that the best format for tournaments with stacked roster is round-robin, or true Swiss-format, group stage to seed into the playoff. You have to play against everybody once, and then beat them in the playoff again to claim that you are the best players. It's eight premier international tournaments in a row, including both offline and online. I feel like I don't even need to say more on that. You need to do some serious mind-games to try to argue that that's not important in some kind of very important sense. And I would not even say EU is better than KR "at the top." That's too vague because, like you said, a majority of top 10 players have always been KR. Rather, when we talk about who are the people actually winning tournaments where everyone is participating, it's just undeniable that those players are foreigners. For a long time now. @Poopi, I'm pretty skeptical most people would have even said that Solar was the best korean at that point, let alone player in the world. I wouldn't on either. But you just made my point. Whatever we make of Solar, you would need to see how he was competing against the best foreigners, such as results in WTL. Him winning GSL by itself is no longer that ergo proof that he was the best. Actually it was the proof? It’s not WTL proves that Solar is the best in the world, it’s that in WTL we saw his potential (like we saw the potential for ByuN in the various online tournaments before his GSL + BlizzCon win) in every match-up, so he had the potential to finally win a Code S title, and he managed to do so. WTL results by themselves don’t have much value, it’s just a minor team league that mainly team owners / managers care about. It’s good entertainment but it’s online + mainly bo1 so we are far from the days of proleague where this was a real thing. If Solar didn’t win his Code S, no one would remember that he did heavy lifting in WTL, because it doesn’t matter much. His code S title matters.
But the point is you then had to point to WTL. Because even if it proved he was the best in Korea, you argued he was better than Serral/Reynor because of WTL. That's my point. If you want to know who is the best in the world you need to look to international tournaments. And if you don't think WTL was actually important, and is only entertainment, than actually we have no reason to think that he was better than Serral/Reynor, and certainly not Clem who he didn't face.
And of course, this is ignoring even the implausible argument that winning 2-0 vs Serral and 1-0 vs Reynor meant he was a stronger player than them. At best you could say he had better ZvZ than Serral which is fair because Serrals ZvZ was comparatively bad for a few years.
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Maru vs Serral
best of 35 series broken into 2 or 3 days (Snooker World Championship style).
For the OFFICIAL SC2 G.O.A.T. status. This needs to happen. Work your magic, tl.net!
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France12891 Posts
On May 12 2024 19:15 Pandain wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 19:08 Poopi wrote:On May 12 2024 18:38 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 12:38 tigera6 wrote:On May 12 2024 10:25 Pandain wrote:
None of that is true anymore. Yes, Koreans writ large are way better than foreigners writ large. But it's undisputed that the absolute best foreigners are killers. Koreans have not won a single premier international offline event since 2022 DH Atlanta. Even right now, if you asked me for the top five players in the world, foreigners are going to be three of them (Serral, Clem, Maxpax). You honestly could even argue that Serral/Clem/Maxpax are each stronger than Maru overall (Maxpax is the more questionable one but it's more than plausible), meaning that even when Maru won the last GSL he could still only be the fourth best player in the world.
When Maru (or Solar, or whoever) wins a GSL now, it doesn't mean much beyond that they won a very difficult tournament. And maybe it means they are the best Korean at that point. That's awesome. But it no longer means they are the best in the world.
When you want to see the absolute highest level of play, it's going to be at a premier international event. And if you want to know who is really the absolute best player in the world, it's also going to be at a premier international event. GSL no longer is that tournament. This is the "dismissive" attitude that I feel from certain EU fans, or some known caster. So just because EU won 4 offline international tournament in a row (2 ESL, Gamers8 and IEM), now they are automatically better than KR at the top? So when KR won 2 offline ESL in 2022 and none of EU making it to top4 in IEM last year, did we shit talk the EU top for that too? It would only be true if EU players come in and just dominate KR, but aside Serral I havent seen other top EU player done that consistently enough. There are so many things that went into a tournament result, thats why its hard to just pick a certain period or tournament and call it how things will be from now on. By your definition, Clem was the best player in the world after winning Atlanta until he lost to Serral in IEM? And hes still the best Terran in the world because no other Terran has won international event since then? And imho, the Seasonal offline events are to promote the most amount of games, not the best quality of games. Winning 2 bo3 in the Winner Bracket (one possibly against a low seed player) guarantee the spot in the playoff, while the rest have to play from the Knockout Bracket with zero seeding is not the best format. I have always believe that the best format for tournaments with stacked roster is round-robin, or true Swiss-format, group stage to seed into the playoff. You have to play against everybody once, and then beat them in the playoff again to claim that you are the best players. It's eight premier international tournaments in a row, including both offline and online. I feel like I don't even need to say more on that. You need to do some serious mind-games to try to argue that that's not important in some kind of very important sense. And I would not even say EU is better than KR "at the top." That's too vague because, like you said, a majority of top 10 players have always been KR. Rather, when we talk about who are the people actually winning tournaments where everyone is participating, it's just undeniable that those players are foreigners. For a long time now. @Poopi, I'm pretty skeptical most people would have even said that Solar was the best korean at that point, let alone player in the world. I wouldn't on either. But you just made my point. Whatever we make of Solar, you would need to see how he was competing against the best foreigners, such as results in WTL. Him winning GSL by itself is no longer that ergo proof that he was the best. Actually it was the proof? It’s not WTL proves that Solar is the best in the world, it’s that in WTL we saw his potential (like we saw the potential for ByuN in the various online tournaments before his GSL + BlizzCon win) in every match-up, so he had the potential to finally win a Code S title, and he managed to do so. WTL results by themselves don’t have much value, it’s just a minor team league that mainly team owners / managers care about. It’s good entertainment but it’s online + mainly bo1 so we are far from the days of proleague where this was a real thing. If Solar didn’t win his Code S, no one would remember that he did heavy lifting in WTL, because it doesn’t matter much. His code S title matters. But the point is you then had to point to WTL. Because even if it proved he was the best in Korea, you argued he was better than Serral/Reynor because of WTL. That's my point. If you want to know who is the best in the world you need to look to international tournaments. And if you don't think WTL was actually important, and is only entertainment, than actually we have no reason to think that he was better than Serral/Reynor, and certainly not Clem who he didn't face. And of course, this is ignoring even the implausible argument that winning 2-0 vs Serral and 1-0 vs Reynor meant he was a stronger player than them. At best you could say he had better ZvZ than Serral which is fair because Serrals ZvZ was comparatively bad for a few years.
But it’s a meaningless point then?
Tournaments winners are not who would have beaten every other player in BoX. It’s who lifts the trophy. That’s why you can have bracket luck etc. Was Oliveira the best in the world when he won Katowice 2023? Yes he was, but that doesn’t mean he would have beaten other players that he didn’t face, that we can’t know. He was the best player because that day the biggest tournament was Katowice and he won it.
So if your point is that in order to be the best in the world, you need to be able to beat every other competitor on the planet on the exact same day, I am sorry but it’s not going to happen.
Indeed, most tournaments end up with a bracket, so you will inevitably avoid other players.
So the real question is: is Code S still the tournament with the highest level of play overall? The answer is yes (obviously): super duper low ping that allows the finest of play, rest days so players are playing in their best shape, time for preparation so even underdogs are difficult to beat, etc.
But if you want a tournament that guarantees the player winning it is capable of beating any pro player on the planet that day, there is none that exists, not even the international ones.
Like Oliveira won, but maybe if they played 2 hours later Maru would have won.
We have a saying in French for such arguments: « avec des si on mettrait Paris dans une bouteille » -> with if, we would put Paris in a bottle.
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On May 12 2024 19:48 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 19:15 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 19:08 Poopi wrote:On May 12 2024 18:38 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 12:38 tigera6 wrote:On May 12 2024 10:25 Pandain wrote:
None of that is true anymore. Yes, Koreans writ large are way better than foreigners writ large. But it's undisputed that the absolute best foreigners are killers. Koreans have not won a single premier international offline event since 2022 DH Atlanta. Even right now, if you asked me for the top five players in the world, foreigners are going to be three of them (Serral, Clem, Maxpax). You honestly could even argue that Serral/Clem/Maxpax are each stronger than Maru overall (Maxpax is the more questionable one but it's more than plausible), meaning that even when Maru won the last GSL he could still only be the fourth best player in the world.
When Maru (or Solar, or whoever) wins a GSL now, it doesn't mean much beyond that they won a very difficult tournament. And maybe it means they are the best Korean at that point. That's awesome. But it no longer means they are the best in the world.
When you want to see the absolute highest level of play, it's going to be at a premier international event. And if you want to know who is really the absolute best player in the world, it's also going to be at a premier international event. GSL no longer is that tournament. This is the "dismissive" attitude that I feel from certain EU fans, or some known caster. So just because EU won 4 offline international tournament in a row (2 ESL, Gamers8 and IEM), now they are automatically better than KR at the top? So when KR won 2 offline ESL in 2022 and none of EU making it to top4 in IEM last year, did we shit talk the EU top for that too? It would only be true if EU players come in and just dominate KR, but aside Serral I havent seen other top EU player done that consistently enough. There are so many things that went into a tournament result, thats why its hard to just pick a certain period or tournament and call it how things will be from now on. By your definition, Clem was the best player in the world after winning Atlanta until he lost to Serral in IEM? And hes still the best Terran in the world because no other Terran has won international event since then? And imho, the Seasonal offline events are to promote the most amount of games, not the best quality of games. Winning 2 bo3 in the Winner Bracket (one possibly against a low seed player) guarantee the spot in the playoff, while the rest have to play from the Knockout Bracket with zero seeding is not the best format. I have always believe that the best format for tournaments with stacked roster is round-robin, or true Swiss-format, group stage to seed into the playoff. You have to play against everybody once, and then beat them in the playoff again to claim that you are the best players. It's eight premier international tournaments in a row, including both offline and online. I feel like I don't even need to say more on that. You need to do some serious mind-games to try to argue that that's not important in some kind of very important sense. And I would not even say EU is better than KR "at the top." That's too vague because, like you said, a majority of top 10 players have always been KR. Rather, when we talk about who are the people actually winning tournaments where everyone is participating, it's just undeniable that those players are foreigners. For a long time now. @Poopi, I'm pretty skeptical most people would have even said that Solar was the best korean at that point, let alone player in the world. I wouldn't on either. But you just made my point. Whatever we make of Solar, you would need to see how he was competing against the best foreigners, such as results in WTL. Him winning GSL by itself is no longer that ergo proof that he was the best. Actually it was the proof? It’s not WTL proves that Solar is the best in the world, it’s that in WTL we saw his potential (like we saw the potential for ByuN in the various online tournaments before his GSL + BlizzCon win) in every match-up, so he had the potential to finally win a Code S title, and he managed to do so. WTL results by themselves don’t have much value, it’s just a minor team league that mainly team owners / managers care about. It’s good entertainment but it’s online + mainly bo1 so we are far from the days of proleague where this was a real thing. If Solar didn’t win his Code S, no one would remember that he did heavy lifting in WTL, because it doesn’t matter much. His code S title matters. But the point is you then had to point to WTL. Because even if it proved he was the best in Korea, you argued he was better than Serral/Reynor because of WTL. That's my point. If you want to know who is the best in the world you need to look to international tournaments. And if you don't think WTL was actually important, and is only entertainment, than actually we have no reason to think that he was better than Serral/Reynor, and certainly not Clem who he didn't face. And of course, this is ignoring even the implausible argument that winning 2-0 vs Serral and 1-0 vs Reynor meant he was a stronger player than them. At best you could say he had better ZvZ than Serral which is fair because Serrals ZvZ was comparatively bad for a few years. But it’s a meaningless point then? Tournaments winners are not who would have beaten every other player in BoX. It’s who lifts the trophy. That’s why you can have bracket luck etc. Was Oliveira the best in the world when he won Katowice 2023? Yes he was, but that doesn’t mean he would have beaten other players that he didn’t face, that we can’t know. He was the best player because that day the biggest tournament was Katowice and he won it. So if your point is that in order to be the best in the world, you need to be able to beat every other competitor on the planet on the exact same day, I am sorry but it’s not going to happen. Indeed, most tournaments end up with a bracket, so you will inevitably avoid other players. So the real question is: is Code S still the tournament with the highest level of play overall? The answer is yes (obviously): super duper low ping that allows the finest of play, rest days so players are playing in their best shape, time for preparation so even underdogs are difficult to beat, etc. But if you want a tournament that guarantees the player winning it is capable of beating any pro player on the planet that day, there is none that exists, not even the international ones. Like Oliveira won, but maybe if they played 2 hours later Maru would have won. We have a saying in French for such arguments: « avec des si on mettrait Paris dans une bouteille » -> with if, we would put Paris in a bottle.
My point is to be the best in the world they need to have performed the best in a tournament that also had all (or at least most of) the other best players in the world. That's true broadly in GSL but not for the absolute best players, when for the majority of the last 2 years arguably 3/5 or 3/6 of the top 6 players have been non-Korean.
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On May 12 2024 06:01 Ronski wrote:
The GSL has always been a global tournament in name only. A tournament being held over a long period of time where each match takes place in a studio automatically weeds out majority of the world and only domestic players can reliably participate.
If there was a GSL style tournament but instead held in Europe or America majority of the players would be Europeans or Americans. The amount of Koreans willing to move and live in another continent with an entirely different culture and language they aren't fluent with would prevent most from participating, the same way the GSL keeps foreigners out due to how inconvenient it is to partake.
GSL has always been a tournament for Koreans held in korea with international competition allowed to partake if they are willing to deal with the inconveniences that come with it. While koreans are the best players in the world this made the GSL the hardest tournament to win and with price pool to match it became the most prestigious.
Nowadays we have a few players outside of Korea who would be championship contenders if they were to participate in GSL, namely Serral and Clem. They most likely will never participate in GSL due to the inconvenient nature of the tournament. Dedicating months of your life for a tournament with 1/4th of the price pool of winning ESL Europe doesn't make much sense.
GSL will continue to be a prestigous tournament but only because of the average level of players participating in it. For foreigners it makes no sense to ever participate in GSL as the 1st place hardly covers the plane tickets.
In my eyes winning an ESL International is a greater achievement than winning a GSL now. Simply because the price pool attracts all the best players in the world and the tournament format doesn't require you to restructure your entire life to participate.
Its 100% more global than the region locked playground EU and NA events
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On May 12 2024 18:38 Pandain wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 12:38 tigera6 wrote:On May 12 2024 10:25 Pandain wrote:
None of that is true anymore. Yes, Koreans writ large are way better than foreigners writ large. But it's undisputed that the absolute best foreigners are killers. Koreans have not won a single premier international offline event since 2022 DH Atlanta. Even right now, if you asked me for the top five players in the world, foreigners are going to be three of them (Serral, Clem, Maxpax). You honestly could even argue that Serral/Clem/Maxpax are each stronger than Maru overall (Maxpax is the more questionable one but it's more than plausible), meaning that even when Maru won the last GSL he could still only be the fourth best player in the world.
When Maru (or Solar, or whoever) wins a GSL now, it doesn't mean much beyond that they won a very difficult tournament. And maybe it means they are the best Korean at that point. That's awesome. But it no longer means they are the best in the world.
When you want to see the absolute highest level of play, it's going to be at a premier international event. And if you want to know who is really the absolute best player in the world, it's also going to be at a premier international event. GSL no longer is that tournament. This is the "dismissive" attitude that I feel from certain EU fans, or some known caster. So just because EU won 4 offline international tournament in a row (2 ESL, Gamers8 and IEM), now they are automatically better than KR at the top? So when KR won 2 offline ESL in 2022 and none of EU making it to top4 in IEM last year, did we shit talk the EU top for that too? It would only be true if EU players come in and just dominate KR, but aside Serral I havent seen other top EU player done that consistently enough. There are so many things that went into a tournament result, thats why its hard to just pick a certain period or tournament and call it how things will be from now on. By your definition, Clem was the best player in the world after winning Atlanta until he lost to Serral in IEM? And hes still the best Terran in the world because no other Terran has won international event since then? And imho, the Seasonal offline events are to promote the most amount of games, not the best quality of games. Winning 2 bo3 in the Winner Bracket (one possibly against a low seed player) guarantee the spot in the playoff, while the rest have to play from the Knockout Bracket with zero seeding is not the best format. I have always believe that the best format for tournaments with stacked roster is round-robin, or true Swiss-format, group stage to seed into the playoff. You have to play against everybody once, and then beat them in the playoff again to claim that you are the best players. It's eight premier international tournaments in a row, including both offline and online. I feel like I don't even need to say more on that. You need to do some serious mind-games to try to argue that that's not important in some kind of very important sense. And I would not even say EU is better than KR "at the top." That's too vague because, like you said, a majority of top 10 players have always been KR. Rather, when we talk about who are the people actually winning tournaments where everyone is participating, it's just undeniable that those players are foreigners. For a long time now. @Poopi, I'm pretty skeptical most people would have even said that Solar was the best korean at that point, let alone player in the world. I wouldn't on either. But you just made my point. Whatever we make of Solar, you would need to see how he was competing against the best foreigners, such as results in WTL. Him winning GSL by itself is no longer that ergo proof that he was the best.
I do not defend what already happen, aka KR players havent won an international tournament for a while, but I do not agree with the assessment that change the view on the power between EU vs KR for the next international event that they play.
Outside of Serral who should be the No.1 at this point, I do not look at Clem, Reynor and Oliveira (people who won the previous international tournaments) as more favorite than the KR. In fact, after Serral, I would take Maru ahead of Clem in term of the chance of winning. Clem would have the same chance with Dark and herO , and then Reynor is in the mix with the rest of them like Solar Byun Classic Cure. Oliveira is not even in top 10 of my list despite him still is the defending world champion.
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France12891 Posts
On May 12 2024 20:09 Pandain wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 19:48 Poopi wrote:On May 12 2024 19:15 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 19:08 Poopi wrote:On May 12 2024 18:38 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 12:38 tigera6 wrote:On May 12 2024 10:25 Pandain wrote:
None of that is true anymore. Yes, Koreans writ large are way better than foreigners writ large. But it's undisputed that the absolute best foreigners are killers. Koreans have not won a single premier international offline event since 2022 DH Atlanta. Even right now, if you asked me for the top five players in the world, foreigners are going to be three of them (Serral, Clem, Maxpax). You honestly could even argue that Serral/Clem/Maxpax are each stronger than Maru overall (Maxpax is the more questionable one but it's more than plausible), meaning that even when Maru won the last GSL he could still only be the fourth best player in the world.
When Maru (or Solar, or whoever) wins a GSL now, it doesn't mean much beyond that they won a very difficult tournament. And maybe it means they are the best Korean at that point. That's awesome. But it no longer means they are the best in the world.
When you want to see the absolute highest level of play, it's going to be at a premier international event. And if you want to know who is really the absolute best player in the world, it's also going to be at a premier international event. GSL no longer is that tournament. This is the "dismissive" attitude that I feel from certain EU fans, or some known caster. So just because EU won 4 offline international tournament in a row (2 ESL, Gamers8 and IEM), now they are automatically better than KR at the top? So when KR won 2 offline ESL in 2022 and none of EU making it to top4 in IEM last year, did we shit talk the EU top for that too? It would only be true if EU players come in and just dominate KR, but aside Serral I havent seen other top EU player done that consistently enough. There are so many things that went into a tournament result, thats why its hard to just pick a certain period or tournament and call it how things will be from now on. By your definition, Clem was the best player in the world after winning Atlanta until he lost to Serral in IEM? And hes still the best Terran in the world because no other Terran has won international event since then? And imho, the Seasonal offline events are to promote the most amount of games, not the best quality of games. Winning 2 bo3 in the Winner Bracket (one possibly against a low seed player) guarantee the spot in the playoff, while the rest have to play from the Knockout Bracket with zero seeding is not the best format. I have always believe that the best format for tournaments with stacked roster is round-robin, or true Swiss-format, group stage to seed into the playoff. You have to play against everybody once, and then beat them in the playoff again to claim that you are the best players. It's eight premier international tournaments in a row, including both offline and online. I feel like I don't even need to say more on that. You need to do some serious mind-games to try to argue that that's not important in some kind of very important sense. And I would not even say EU is better than KR "at the top." That's too vague because, like you said, a majority of top 10 players have always been KR. Rather, when we talk about who are the people actually winning tournaments where everyone is participating, it's just undeniable that those players are foreigners. For a long time now. @Poopi, I'm pretty skeptical most people would have even said that Solar was the best korean at that point, let alone player in the world. I wouldn't on either. But you just made my point. Whatever we make of Solar, you would need to see how he was competing against the best foreigners, such as results in WTL. Him winning GSL by itself is no longer that ergo proof that he was the best. Actually it was the proof? It’s not WTL proves that Solar is the best in the world, it’s that in WTL we saw his potential (like we saw the potential for ByuN in the various online tournaments before his GSL + BlizzCon win) in every match-up, so he had the potential to finally win a Code S title, and he managed to do so. WTL results by themselves don’t have much value, it’s just a minor team league that mainly team owners / managers care about. It’s good entertainment but it’s online + mainly bo1 so we are far from the days of proleague where this was a real thing. If Solar didn’t win his Code S, no one would remember that he did heavy lifting in WTL, because it doesn’t matter much. His code S title matters. But the point is you then had to point to WTL. Because even if it proved he was the best in Korea, you argued he was better than Serral/Reynor because of WTL. That's my point. If you want to know who is the best in the world you need to look to international tournaments. And if you don't think WTL was actually important, and is only entertainment, than actually we have no reason to think that he was better than Serral/Reynor, and certainly not Clem who he didn't face. And of course, this is ignoring even the implausible argument that winning 2-0 vs Serral and 1-0 vs Reynor meant he was a stronger player than them. At best you could say he had better ZvZ than Serral which is fair because Serrals ZvZ was comparatively bad for a few years. But it’s a meaningless point then? Tournaments winners are not who would have beaten every other player in BoX. It’s who lifts the trophy. That’s why you can have bracket luck etc. Was Oliveira the best in the world when he won Katowice 2023? Yes he was, but that doesn’t mean he would have beaten other players that he didn’t face, that we can’t know. He was the best player because that day the biggest tournament was Katowice and he won it. So if your point is that in order to be the best in the world, you need to be able to beat every other competitor on the planet on the exact same day, I am sorry but it’s not going to happen. Indeed, most tournaments end up with a bracket, so you will inevitably avoid other players. So the real question is: is Code S still the tournament with the highest level of play overall? The answer is yes (obviously): super duper low ping that allows the finest of play, rest days so players are playing in their best shape, time for preparation so even underdogs are difficult to beat, etc. But if you want a tournament that guarantees the player winning it is capable of beating any pro player on the planet that day, there is none that exists, not even the international ones. Like Oliveira won, but maybe if they played 2 hours later Maru would have won. We have a saying in French for such arguments: « avec des si on mettrait Paris dans une bouteille » -> with if, we would put Paris in a bottle. My point is to be the best in the world they need to have performed the best in a tournament that also had all (or at least most of) the other best players in the world. That's true broadly in GSL but not for the absolute best players, when for the majority of the last 2 years arguably 3/5 or 3/6 of the top 6 players have been non-Korean.
Okay, I get your point, let's agree to disagree then. We are both biased in opposite directions.
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On May 12 2024 06:01 Ronski wrote:
If there was a GSL style tournament but instead held in Europe or America majority of the players would be Europeans or Americans. The amount of Koreans willing to move and live in another continent with an entirely different culture and language they aren't fluent with would prevent most from participating, the same way the GSL keeps foreigners out due to how inconvenient it is to partake.
You mean like this or this
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I can't really understand the purpose of this post, and the only consequence I can see of it is continuing to exacerbate division in the community.
GSL is great. Maru is great. Serral is great. Starcraft is great. Please stop these inflammatory posts.
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Honestly, what's the point of this article at this exact moment? Given the quite likely scenario that Maru will win again this season, wouldn't it have been much more appropriate to at least wait until this GSL is over?
Maru is amazing and should be celebrated. But this seems like a really odd time to do it. Unless the purpose is to have the same 10 posters arguing about Serral vs Maru in LR threads where neither of them are playing.
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United States1886 Posts
On May 12 2024 23:58 Glorfindelio wrote:
Honestly, what's the point of this article at this exact moment? Given the quite likely scenario that Maru will win again this season, wouldn't it have been much more appropriate to at least wait until this GSL is over?
Maru is amazing and should be celebrated. But this seems like a really odd time to do it. Unless the purpose is to have the same 10 posters arguing about Serral vs Maru in LR threads where neither of them are playing.
I think that the dynamic between Maru and Code S is a fascinating conundrum. Maru's results and the perception of Code S are directly tied to one another, but it's difficult to quantify how much one influences the other. This piece is more of a musing on the topic than anything else. And, since it It isn't an official TL.net article, it doesn't need to abide by some restrictions you'd get if it were one.
Re: the people who argue about Maru/Serral.
They are going to do it whether or not this this thread exists. You can't escape it.
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France12891 Posts
On May 12 2024 22:48 Haighstrom wrote:
I can't really understand the purpose of this post, and the only consequence I can see of it is continuing to exacerbate division in the community.
GSL is great. Maru is great. Serral is great. Starcraft is great. Please stop these inflammatory posts.
That’s all cool and all, but Maru is greater 
Peace and love though!
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On May 12 2024 10:25 Pandain wrote:
Thank you for writing this thoughtful article. It's made me reflect even more on a topic that's bugged me for like a year now, which is why exactly Maru's many GSL wins just don't quite seem as impactful as he continues to rack them up.
I now realize the answer is pretty much the opposite of a lot of what you write above. It's not that his constant wins just makes us numb to that extent, but rather GSL Code S has simply put not been the most "prestigious" or "gold standard" tournament for a while, certainly not with the prize pool deflation and honestly not since ~2019.
It used to be any player who won Code S was the best player in the world. For the most part, people would agree that at least at that point and time, you were the undisputed best player in the world. That in itself was a momentous achievement, and that's what earned you an immortal place in SC2 history.
And as a fan, if you wanted to be sure to see the highest level of play possible, you would turn into GSL Code S. And you could be pretty certain there was no tournament that was going to have a higher level of play than what you were watching at that time.
None of that is true anymore. Yes, Koreans writ large are way better than foreigners writ large. But it's undisputed that the absolute best foreigners are killers. Koreans have not won a single premier international offline event since 2022 DH Atlanta. Even right now, if you asked me for the top five players in the world, foreigners are going to be three of them (Serral, Clem, Maxpax). You honestly could even argue that Serral/Clem/Maxpax are each stronger than Maru overall (Maxpax is the more questionable one but it's more than plausible), meaning that even when Maru won the last GSL he could still only be the fourth best player in the world.
When Maru (or Solar, or whoever) wins a GSL now, it doesn't mean much beyond that they won a very difficult tournament. And maybe it means they are the best Korean at that point. That's awesome. But it no longer means they are the best in the world.
When you want to see the absolute highest level of play, it's going to be at a premier international event. And if you want to know who is really the absolute best player in the world, it's also going to be at a premier international event. GSL no longer is that tournament.
The foreigner bias has always been around since day 1. Still is and your post is proof of it.
The only top 5 player in the world in your list is Serral.
Maxpax? Really? If I said some Korean who won only online tourney and never went to an offline event was the best and didn't win any premier tournament / gsl etc you'd say I'm biased, but here you are listing maxpax as top 3.
Clem is fantastic player, but he's not overall better than than many korean T's, he's top 10 sure but not top 5.
Either way Koreans even in their weakened state still have most of the top players.
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On May 12 2024 20:09 Pandain wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 19:48 Poopi wrote:On May 12 2024 19:15 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 19:08 Poopi wrote:On May 12 2024 18:38 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 12:38 tigera6 wrote:On May 12 2024 10:25 Pandain wrote:
None of that is true anymore. Yes, Koreans writ large are way better than foreigners writ large. But it's undisputed that the absolute best foreigners are killers. Koreans have not won a single premier international offline event since 2022 DH Atlanta. Even right now, if you asked me for the top five players in the world, foreigners are going to be three of them (Serral, Clem, Maxpax). You honestly could even argue that Serral/Clem/Maxpax are each stronger than Maru overall (Maxpax is the more questionable one but it's more than plausible), meaning that even when Maru won the last GSL he could still only be the fourth best player in the world.
When Maru (or Solar, or whoever) wins a GSL now, it doesn't mean much beyond that they won a very difficult tournament. And maybe it means they are the best Korean at that point. That's awesome. But it no longer means they are the best in the world.
When you want to see the absolute highest level of play, it's going to be at a premier international event. And if you want to know who is really the absolute best player in the world, it's also going to be at a premier international event. GSL no longer is that tournament. This is the "dismissive" attitude that I feel from certain EU fans, or some known caster. So just because EU won 4 offline international tournament in a row (2 ESL, Gamers8 and IEM), now they are automatically better than KR at the top? So when KR won 2 offline ESL in 2022 and none of EU making it to top4 in IEM last year, did we shit talk the EU top for that too? It would only be true if EU players come in and just dominate KR, but aside Serral I havent seen other top EU player done that consistently enough. There are so many things that went into a tournament result, thats why its hard to just pick a certain period or tournament and call it how things will be from now on. By your definition, Clem was the best player in the world after winning Atlanta until he lost to Serral in IEM? And hes still the best Terran in the world because no other Terran has won international event since then? And imho, the Seasonal offline events are to promote the most amount of games, not the best quality of games. Winning 2 bo3 in the Winner Bracket (one possibly against a low seed player) guarantee the spot in the playoff, while the rest have to play from the Knockout Bracket with zero seeding is not the best format. I have always believe that the best format for tournaments with stacked roster is round-robin, or true Swiss-format, group stage to seed into the playoff. You have to play against everybody once, and then beat them in the playoff again to claim that you are the best players. It's eight premier international tournaments in a row, including both offline and online. I feel like I don't even need to say more on that. You need to do some serious mind-games to try to argue that that's not important in some kind of very important sense. And I would not even say EU is better than KR "at the top." That's too vague because, like you said, a majority of top 10 players have always been KR. Rather, when we talk about who are the people actually winning tournaments where everyone is participating, it's just undeniable that those players are foreigners. For a long time now. @Poopi, I'm pretty skeptical most people would have even said that Solar was the best korean at that point, let alone player in the world. I wouldn't on either. But you just made my point. Whatever we make of Solar, you would need to see how he was competing against the best foreigners, such as results in WTL. Him winning GSL by itself is no longer that ergo proof that he was the best. Actually it was the proof? It’s not WTL proves that Solar is the best in the world, it’s that in WTL we saw his potential (like we saw the potential for ByuN in the various online tournaments before his GSL + BlizzCon win) in every match-up, so he had the potential to finally win a Code S title, and he managed to do so. WTL results by themselves don’t have much value, it’s just a minor team league that mainly team owners / managers care about. It’s good entertainment but it’s online + mainly bo1 so we are far from the days of proleague where this was a real thing. If Solar didn’t win his Code S, no one would remember that he did heavy lifting in WTL, because it doesn’t matter much. His code S title matters. But the point is you then had to point to WTL. Because even if it proved he was the best in Korea, you argued he was better than Serral/Reynor because of WTL. That's my point. If you want to know who is the best in the world you need to look to international tournaments. And if you don't think WTL was actually important, and is only entertainment, than actually we have no reason to think that he was better than Serral/Reynor, and certainly not Clem who he didn't face. And of course, this is ignoring even the implausible argument that winning 2-0 vs Serral and 1-0 vs Reynor meant he was a stronger player than them. At best you could say he had better ZvZ than Serral which is fair because Serrals ZvZ was comparatively bad for a few years. But it’s a meaningless point then? Tournaments winners are not who would have beaten every other player in BoX. It’s who lifts the trophy. That’s why you can have bracket luck etc. Was Oliveira the best in the world when he won Katowice 2023? Yes he was, but that doesn’t mean he would have beaten other players that he didn’t face, that we can’t know. He was the best player because that day the biggest tournament was Katowice and he won it. So if your point is that in order to be the best in the world, you need to be able to beat every other competitor on the planet on the exact same day, I am sorry but it’s not going to happen. Indeed, most tournaments end up with a bracket, so you will inevitably avoid other players. So the real question is: is Code S still the tournament with the highest level of play overall? The answer is yes (obviously): super duper low ping that allows the finest of play, rest days so players are playing in their best shape, time for preparation so even underdogs are difficult to beat, etc. But if you want a tournament that guarantees the player winning it is capable of beating any pro player on the planet that day, there is none that exists, not even the international ones. Like Oliveira won, but maybe if they played 2 hours later Maru would have won. We have a saying in French for such arguments: « avec des si on mettrait Paris dans une bouteille » -> with if, we would put Paris in a bottle. My point is to be the best in the world they need to have performed the best in a tournament that also had all (or at least most of) the other best players in the world. That's true broadly in GSL but not for the absolute best players, when for the majority of the last 2 years arguably 3/5 or 3/6 of the top 6 players have been non-Korean.
Korea still has the majority of the best players, funny how you don't use your logic to apply to foreigners. They still haven't won any GSL.
Reynor just lost 0-4 in his group again. And Reynor at his best is the best foreigner in my eyes after Serral.
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United States1886 Posts
On May 13 2024 02:31 allmotor1 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 20:09 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 19:48 Poopi wrote:On May 12 2024 19:15 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 19:08 Poopi wrote:On May 12 2024 18:38 Pandain wrote:On May 12 2024 12:38 tigera6 wrote:On May 12 2024 10:25 Pandain wrote:
None of that is true anymore. Yes, Koreans writ large are way better than foreigners writ large. But it's undisputed that the absolute best foreigners are killers. Koreans have not won a single premier international offline event since 2022 DH Atlanta. Even right now, if you asked me for the top five players in the world, foreigners are going to be three of them (Serral, Clem, Maxpax). You honestly could even argue that Serral/Clem/Maxpax are each stronger than Maru overall (Maxpax is the more questionable one but it's more than plausible), meaning that even when Maru won the last GSL he could still only be the fourth best player in the world.
When Maru (or Solar, or whoever) wins a GSL now, it doesn't mean much beyond that they won a very difficult tournament. And maybe it means they are the best Korean at that point. That's awesome. But it no longer means they are the best in the world.
When you want to see the absolute highest level of play, it's going to be at a premier international event. And if you want to know who is really the absolute best player in the world, it's also going to be at a premier international event. GSL no longer is that tournament. This is the "dismissive" attitude that I feel from certain EU fans, or some known caster. So just because EU won 4 offline international tournament in a row (2 ESL, Gamers8 and IEM), now they are automatically better than KR at the top? So when KR won 2 offline ESL in 2022 and none of EU making it to top4 in IEM last year, did we shit talk the EU top for that too? It would only be true if EU players come in and just dominate KR, but aside Serral I havent seen other top EU player done that consistently enough. There are so many things that went into a tournament result, thats why its hard to just pick a certain period or tournament and call it how things will be from now on. By your definition, Clem was the best player in the world after winning Atlanta until he lost to Serral in IEM? And hes still the best Terran in the world because no other Terran has won international event since then? And imho, the Seasonal offline events are to promote the most amount of games, not the best quality of games. Winning 2 bo3 in the Winner Bracket (one possibly against a low seed player) guarantee the spot in the playoff, while the rest have to play from the Knockout Bracket with zero seeding is not the best format. I have always believe that the best format for tournaments with stacked roster is round-robin, or true Swiss-format, group stage to seed into the playoff. You have to play against everybody once, and then beat them in the playoff again to claim that you are the best players. It's eight premier international tournaments in a row, including both offline and online. I feel like I don't even need to say more on that. You need to do some serious mind-games to try to argue that that's not important in some kind of very important sense. And I would not even say EU is better than KR "at the top." That's too vague because, like you said, a majority of top 10 players have always been KR. Rather, when we talk about who are the people actually winning tournaments where everyone is participating, it's just undeniable that those players are foreigners. For a long time now. @Poopi, I'm pretty skeptical most people would have even said that Solar was the best korean at that point, let alone player in the world. I wouldn't on either. But you just made my point. Whatever we make of Solar, you would need to see how he was competing against the best foreigners, such as results in WTL. Him winning GSL by itself is no longer that ergo proof that he was the best. Actually it was the proof? It’s not WTL proves that Solar is the best in the world, it’s that in WTL we saw his potential (like we saw the potential for ByuN in the various online tournaments before his GSL + BlizzCon win) in every match-up, so he had the potential to finally win a Code S title, and he managed to do so. WTL results by themselves don’t have much value, it’s just a minor team league that mainly team owners / managers care about. It’s good entertainment but it’s online + mainly bo1 so we are far from the days of proleague where this was a real thing. If Solar didn’t win his Code S, no one would remember that he did heavy lifting in WTL, because it doesn’t matter much. His code S title matters. But the point is you then had to point to WTL. Because even if it proved he was the best in Korea, you argued he was better than Serral/Reynor because of WTL. That's my point. If you want to know who is the best in the world you need to look to international tournaments. And if you don't think WTL was actually important, and is only entertainment, than actually we have no reason to think that he was better than Serral/Reynor, and certainly not Clem who he didn't face. And of course, this is ignoring even the implausible argument that winning 2-0 vs Serral and 1-0 vs Reynor meant he was a stronger player than them. At best you could say he had better ZvZ than Serral which is fair because Serrals ZvZ was comparatively bad for a few years. But it’s a meaningless point then? Tournaments winners are not who would have beaten every other player in BoX. It’s who lifts the trophy. That’s why you can have bracket luck etc. Was Oliveira the best in the world when he won Katowice 2023? Yes he was, but that doesn’t mean he would have beaten other players that he didn’t face, that we can’t know. He was the best player because that day the biggest tournament was Katowice and he won it. So if your point is that in order to be the best in the world, you need to be able to beat every other competitor on the planet on the exact same day, I am sorry but it’s not going to happen. Indeed, most tournaments end up with a bracket, so you will inevitably avoid other players. So the real question is: is Code S still the tournament with the highest level of play overall? The answer is yes (obviously): super duper low ping that allows the finest of play, rest days so players are playing in their best shape, time for preparation so even underdogs are difficult to beat, etc. But if you want a tournament that guarantees the player winning it is capable of beating any pro player on the planet that day, there is none that exists, not even the international ones. Like Oliveira won, but maybe if they played 2 hours later Maru would have won. We have a saying in French for such arguments: « avec des si on mettrait Paris dans une bouteille » -> with if, we would put Paris in a bottle. My point is to be the best in the world they need to have performed the best in a tournament that also had all (or at least most of) the other best players in the world. That's true broadly in GSL but not for the absolute best players, when for the majority of the last 2 years arguably 3/5 or 3/6 of the top 6 players have been non-Korean. Korea still has the majority of the best players, funny how you don't use your logic to apply to foreigners. They still haven't won any GSL. Reynor just lost 0-4 in his group again. And Reynor at his best is the best foreigner in my eyes after Serral.
You're being a prisoner of the moment. Reynor isn't the first big name player to lose in the opening round and he won't be the last.
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France12891 Posts
On May 13 2024 02:26 allmotor1 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 10:25 Pandain wrote:
Thank you for writing this thoughtful article. It's made me reflect even more on a topic that's bugged me for like a year now, which is why exactly Maru's many GSL wins just don't quite seem as impactful as he continues to rack them up.
I now realize the answer is pretty much the opposite of a lot of what you write above. It's not that his constant wins just makes us numb to that extent, but rather GSL Code S has simply put not been the most "prestigious" or "gold standard" tournament for a while, certainly not with the prize pool deflation and honestly not since ~2019.
It used to be any player who won Code S was the best player in the world. For the most part, people would agree that at least at that point and time, you were the undisputed best player in the world. That in itself was a momentous achievement, and that's what earned you an immortal place in SC2 history.
And as a fan, if you wanted to be sure to see the highest level of play possible, you would turn into GSL Code S. And you could be pretty certain there was no tournament that was going to have a higher level of play than what you were watching at that time.
None of that is true anymore. Yes, Koreans writ large are way better than foreigners writ large. But it's undisputed that the absolute best foreigners are killers. Koreans have not won a single premier international offline event since 2022 DH Atlanta. Even right now, if you asked me for the top five players in the world, foreigners are going to be three of them (Serral, Clem, Maxpax). You honestly could even argue that Serral/Clem/Maxpax are each stronger than Maru overall (Maxpax is the more questionable one but it's more than plausible), meaning that even when Maru won the last GSL he could still only be the fourth best player in the world.
When Maru (or Solar, or whoever) wins a GSL now, it doesn't mean much beyond that they won a very difficult tournament. And maybe it means they are the best Korean at that point. That's awesome. But it no longer means they are the best in the world.
When you want to see the absolute highest level of play, it's going to be at a premier international event. And if you want to know who is really the absolute best player in the world, it's also going to be at a premier international event. GSL no longer is that tournament. The foreigner bias has always been around since day 1. Still is and your post is proof of it. The only top 5 player in the world in your list is Serral. Maxpax? Really? If I said some Korean who won only online tourney and never went to an offline event was the best and didn't win any premier tournament / gsl etc you'd say I'm biased, but here you are listing maxpax as top 3. Clem is fantastic player, but he's not overall better than than many korean T's, he's top 10 sure but not top 5. Either way Koreans even in their weakened state still have most of the top players.
Yeah, putting MaxPax as one of the best players in the world is simply ridiculous. That’s like saying a random guy from a random country that doesn’t have internet is one of the best StarCraft 2 players because theoretically / genetically he might have the best potential. Guess what, if his environment doesn’t allow him to compete and he can’t reach his potential, it’s just that, potential.
Back to MaxPax, as long as he can’t play offline due to anxiety (because let’s be real, given the informations we have, that’s the best educated guess we have), his perceived level by the Reddit community / discord / twitch etc. is meaningless.
The recency bias is also blatant there, since MaxPax reached the finals of the EU tournament he is [i]de facto[i] top 8 world, even taking online into account?
Using Reynor as proxy who played in both GSL and the EU tournament, top 6 in the EU tournament is equivalent at best to 0-4 in ro16 of GSL.
Then we have Spirit at top 3, which is a good tell of the level of the scene in Europe currently. Using his WTL results as proxy compared to other KR players, despite «easy » first 3 matches, he is at rank #21 with 2w-4l record ( World Team League/2024/Summer/Statistics).
Top 10 in WTL is 5 KR players, 3 CN players and Reynor + MaxPax. EU is super weak as a whole atm and MaxPax results are not that of a top 8 player in the world, nor is his gameplay.
edit: gameplay wise currently without taking Serral into account because we didn't see him much, my current top 8 would be (in no particular order),  Clem, Maru,  HerO, Cure,  soO, GuMiho, Solar and ByuN. MaxPax would be in top 12 or maybe top 10.
Cure is pretty ballsy given his results, but I think he will surprise us in his GSL group. Overall "gameplay" is pretty duper subjective though, because sometimes you can "see" or "feel" that a player is just missing one or two tweak in his gameplay to reach "perfection" (like Oliveira in 2022/2023), but that doesn't mean that player will be able to correct those things without losing the other things that made him great at this particular moment.
MaxPax is a decent candidate for top 8 gameplay, but he is not an "obvious" pick like Clem atm, Maru or herO
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Question about the regional lock:
If Maru officially lives in the EU (Sweden/ England/ Germany) for a year, can he play in the ESL SC2 Masters tournaments in that year?
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On May 12 2024 04:19 kennytennyson2 wrote:
My simple issue with Maru is that he lacks a World Championship, whether that be Blizzcon or IEM Katowice (when it was chosen to be the World Championships)
Your problem with Maru is he lacks a world championship?
Maru has came second place in the world championships or close it it several times, and he has won countless code S and been competitive in that tournament for almost if not a decade.
Serral has won the world championship and 0 code S has not even competed in one.
You cannot compare the two Maru is in a league of his own
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On May 13 2024 05:53 Drahkn wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 04:19 kennytennyson2 wrote:
My simple issue with Maru is that he lacks a World Championship, whether that be Blizzcon or IEM Katowice (when it was chosen to be the World Championships) You cannot compare the two Maru is in a league of his own
True, Marus lack of WCs is so heavy he can't fill it up with his regional success.
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France12891 Posts
On May 13 2024 05:53 Drahkn wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2024 04:19 kennytennyson2 wrote:
My simple issue with Maru is that he lacks a World Championship, whether that be Blizzcon or IEM Katowice (when it was chosen to be the World Championships) Your problem with Maru is he lacks a world championship? Maru has came second place in the world championships or close it it several times, and he has won countless code S and been competitive in that tournament for almost if not a decade. Serral has won the world championship and 0 code S has not even competed in one. You cannot compare the two Maru is in a league of his own
Answer to the quote above
Maru is in a league of his own in terms of code S / longevity, but Serral is in the GOAT conversation now that he has 3 World Championships and has been the most feared foreign player since 2018 (or one of the most feared).
The problem is exactly the point of the topic: Serral won't ever participate in code S (and code S is becoming less and less prestigious / financially interesting, so only the true warriors like Reynor or the usual foreigners + some newcomers commit to participate in it, huge props to him / them for trying it out). On the other hand, Maru has no reason NOT to participate in code S, but his problem is that he is too good so he is the favorite every time he enters the tournament.
At this point, winning code S is expected and anything but 1st place is a disappointment, since he is on paper the best KR player by far nowadays.
Personal opinion as a starcraft 2 fan / follower of the scene since WoL:
I personally think Maru should keep competing in code S for the money (his legacy in the tournament is already done), and try to win the tournament in Saudi Arabia not for the "WC" prestige, but rather just because it's a lot of money.
On the other hand, someone like Reynor needs to win code S for his legacy, so it's useful for him to try to win it. As for the money, lamborghini ain't cheap so he should keep winning the big $ tournaments as well.
For Serral though, his legacy is done too like Maru, so he should just farm money in the big tournaments he is allowed to enter I guess.
Foreigners who should try Code S would be Clem and HeroMarine, Clem because it would be useful for him on the international stage, and HeroMarine because he has a real shot at winning it given his intellect at figuring other players out. His mechanics ain't as good as Clem, but they are good enough to beat any player in the world if his plan is thought out enough.
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EPT
