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Northern Ireland25618 Posts
On June 06 2024 15:18 Argonauta wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2024 14:03 onPHYRE wrote:On June 06 2024 06:24 Tommy131313 wrote:
imho you can't seriously blame jetlag for Maru to (nearly) always lose against Serral. In the case of Dallas, it's almost the same time to fly for both of them, approx. 12 hours.
If you look at all Maru-Serral matches say for the last 3 years, Maru has a map score of 7-29 offline/online (without minor cups). You can search for random explanations for this vast difference, or you can apply ockham's razor and assume, Serral's just better than Maru in the game, at least since 3 years (prolly much longer).
And if you just look at the last 3 major international playoffs, it's even worse for Maru... 0-11 mapscore.
So I don't believe there has to be a GOAT debate anymore, apart from Korean (or GSL) bias. Let’s also not forget that Serral is literally serving his military service. You can talk about it being different than KR military service (and you would be correct), but I think any other player under the reduced practice hours (Serral has stated to a few practice partners that while he can practice on weekends, his time devoted to SC2 has dropped overall due to responsibilities) To add something relevant to this, a person posted on reddit a translated version of Oliveira's reflection on this Dallas event. Here it is: www.reddit.comHe said that Serral has to do service from Monday to Thursday and that he has Friday-Sunday free. He also said that him and Serral were practicing a lot together. If this second hand report is true, those two things tell me that the military service Serral is doing is somewhat very mild. And that glorifying him because of that by comparing it to korean military service is disingenuous at best (at the end of the day South korea is in official war with the North and just a truce stands).
Outside of people who aren’t aware the Finnish service is more mild, I don’t thing anyone is making direct equivalencies here.
It’s just a factor that is reducing his available practice time, and is being noted as any other factor would be. Pros who came up while, or took up full-time education simultaneously, or pros who have niggling injuries that they have to push less hard.
Idk if it’s happened but we’d be acknowledging the same if some pro had to do jury duty in the weeks/months leading up to a big tournament as well
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On June 06 2024 07:59 Perceivere wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2024 06:03 stilt wrote:On June 06 2024 03:28 Perceivere wrote:On June 06 2024 02:11 stilt wrote:On June 05 2024 18:08 SiarX wrote:
How Rogue is better than Maru? I thought it is widely accepted that Maru is #2. Apparently Rogue has 3 wc... Yes, kato 2020 and 2018 (?????) are wc We didn't know back then but there were two wc per years within sc2, that wasn't the case until Rogue won 2020 tho Never anyone claimed Ace, Yoda, Zest or soO were world champ when they won it but here we are. I suppose only the katowice won by Rogue are wc materials. Truly the most overrated player by the community. As for Maru, his influence over the meta and the scene for over 10 years is unmatched, 11 years as one of the 3 best players of his race, that's something. It's just sad he is a chicken in inter tournament. But it's still not ridiculous to consider him the goat : longevity, adaptability, domination, aside from his performance on no korean tourney and some mental block, he has all it takes. Can someone please explain to me why this supposed "mental block" thing only flips on when he's outside of Korea? Is it the air? The food? Or, the age old excuse: jetlag? What is it about foreign lands that triggers this syndrome that Maru's fans keep attributing to him? Please don't tell me it's homesickness. Superstition abounds when rationality dies. On "adaptability," how well did he adapt to his supposed "mental block" syndrome? Or, his Serral syndrome? Can't believe you think I am maru fanboy when I call him a chicken while debunking rogue's favorable narrative. Anyway, to answer you : - by adaptability, I mean his changement of playstyle, at first Maru was like Clem : a young terran playing with relentless agression, insane multitask, flashy micro and so on and then as he got older, his playstyle evolved into a slower positional style and that change is commandable. - and he is obviously choking, his match against oliveira was shameful, the normal guy played superb, that's true but it's also true maru choked against a somewhat easy opponent. And his last serie against serral was straight up embarassing. It's pretty obvious he didn't play at his normal level, the game on ghost river is so freaking terrible. I have no idea how you can interpret the choking part as a defense for Maru, if anything, it's actually pretty bad for a "goat". I did not call you a "fanboy," nor did I even imply it. The fact that you inferred my comment that way is quite indicative of your mentality. That said, there are indeed a lot of his fanboys who use this assertion of "choking" to suggest his normal ability of play is actually much higher than is shown. On the adaptability point, you still haven't answered my question. Why did he not adapt to his supposed mental weakness that seems to magically appear only when he's competing abroad, according to the people who label him a "choke artist"? Why does he suddenly choke in the grand finals, as opposed to earlier on? To date, when Maru loses abroad, he had placed, on average, higher if not much higher than any other Korean, except Rogue. Dark may have an argument, but not prize money-wise. That $1m+ that Maru earned certainly did not only come from Korean tournaments. Most of it is from tournaments abroad. That's a fact. Those facts suggest Maru had actually done extremely well for himself abroad. You and others simply refuse to acknowledge it for whatever reason, or perhaps have too high an expectation for him, that is far beyond his true ability. Oliveira may have been the weaker player, but there were times when Serral lost 0/1-3/4 to Maru, Reynor, Clem, Rogue, Dark, etc... and around those periods, Serral had by far the better winrates (vs Koreans). It's almost as if players have ups and downs, and by definition they can't always perform at their peak, or even their average. By definition, they have to under-perform, or "choke," at some point. Some of you are expecting Maru's average/expected level to be invincible, when in reality that may only be his peak level. The series at IEM vs Serral, Maru gave Serral a hard fight in game 2. Serral got him build-wise a couple games, and in his final game, it seemed Maru truly just choked. That's normal. All players fluctuate around their average. The crazy thing is when other players perform beneath their average, they don't receive the excuse/insult of "choke artist." When the second best player in the world does it, some of his own fans are primarily the ones to bandy it. Some of Maru's fans truly are the least supportive, most annoying kind, probably even to him.
You definitly implied it.
About the adaptability part, well, reading comprehension is not your strongest suit, I state how maru changed his gameplay which is an adaptation to his wrists problem and you're rambling about the mental block, that's a lot of words for nothing lol
Again you refuse to see the massive dichotomy between his results in korea and oversea, well, what can I say, reality escapes you... a guy who collections gsl should have won more oversea tourney, the simple fact you can't realyze it tells everything I need to know about your knowledge of the sc2 scene.
And I never stated Maru should be invicible, I actually think he is a bit overrated out there, not much but still a bit and that serral has been continuously better since 2018 but I am not deluded enough to actually think his bo7 against serral is his fucking standart.
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France12891 Posts
On June 06 2024 15:36 stilt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2024 07:59 Perceivere wrote:On June 06 2024 06:03 stilt wrote:On June 06 2024 03:28 Perceivere wrote:On June 06 2024 02:11 stilt wrote:On June 05 2024 18:08 SiarX wrote:
How Rogue is better than Maru? I thought it is widely accepted that Maru is #2. Apparently Rogue has 3 wc... Yes, kato 2020 and 2018 (?????) are wc We didn't know back then but there were two wc per years within sc2, that wasn't the case until Rogue won 2020 tho Never anyone claimed Ace, Yoda, Zest or soO were world champ when they won it but here we are. I suppose only the katowice won by Rogue are wc materials. Truly the most overrated player by the community. As for Maru, his influence over the meta and the scene for over 10 years is unmatched, 11 years as one of the 3 best players of his race, that's something. It's just sad he is a chicken in inter tournament. But it's still not ridiculous to consider him the goat : longevity, adaptability, domination, aside from his performance on no korean tourney and some mental block, he has all it takes. Can someone please explain to me why this supposed "mental block" thing only flips on when he's outside of Korea? Is it the air? The food? Or, the age old excuse: jetlag? What is it about foreign lands that triggers this syndrome that Maru's fans keep attributing to him? Please don't tell me it's homesickness. Superstition abounds when rationality dies. On "adaptability," how well did he adapt to his supposed "mental block" syndrome? Or, his Serral syndrome? Can't believe you think I am maru fanboy when I call him a chicken while debunking rogue's favorable narrative. Anyway, to answer you : - by adaptability, I mean his changement of playstyle, at first Maru was like Clem : a young terran playing with relentless agression, insane multitask, flashy micro and so on and then as he got older, his playstyle evolved into a slower positional style and that change is commandable. - and he is obviously choking, his match against oliveira was shameful, the normal guy played superb, that's true but it's also true maru choked against a somewhat easy opponent. And his last serie against serral was straight up embarassing. It's pretty obvious he didn't play at his normal level, the game on ghost river is so freaking terrible. I have no idea how you can interpret the choking part as a defense for Maru, if anything, it's actually pretty bad for a "goat". I did not call you a "fanboy," nor did I even imply it. The fact that you inferred my comment that way is quite indicative of your mentality. That said, there are indeed a lot of his fanboys who use this assertion of "choking" to suggest his normal ability of play is actually much higher than is shown. On the adaptability point, you still haven't answered my question. Why did he not adapt to his supposed mental weakness that seems to magically appear only when he's competing abroad, according to the people who label him a "choke artist"? Why does he suddenly choke in the grand finals, as opposed to earlier on? To date, when Maru loses abroad, he had placed, on average, higher if not much higher than any other Korean, except Rogue. Dark may have an argument, but not prize money-wise. That $1m+ that Maru earned certainly did not only come from Korean tournaments. Most of it is from tournaments abroad. That's a fact. Those facts suggest Maru had actually done extremely well for himself abroad. You and others simply refuse to acknowledge it for whatever reason, or perhaps have too high an expectation for him, that is far beyond his true ability. Oliveira may have been the weaker player, but there were times when Serral lost 0/1-3/4 to Maru, Reynor, Clem, Rogue, Dark, etc... and around those periods, Serral had by far the better winrates (vs Koreans). It's almost as if players have ups and downs, and by definition they can't always perform at their peak, or even their average. By definition, they have to under-perform, or "choke," at some point. Some of you are expecting Maru's average/expected level to be invincible, when in reality that may only be his peak level. The series at IEM vs Serral, Maru gave Serral a hard fight in game 2. Serral got him build-wise a couple games, and in his final game, it seemed Maru truly just choked. That's normal. All players fluctuate around their average. The crazy thing is when other players perform beneath their average, they don't receive the excuse/insult of "choke artist." When the second best player in the world does it, some of his own fans are primarily the ones to bandy it. Some of Maru's fans truly are the least supportive, most annoying kind, probably even to him. You definitly implied it. About the adaptability part, well, reading comprehension is not your strongest suit, I state how maru changed his gameplay which is an adaptation to his wrists problem and you're rambling about the mental block, that's a lot of words for nothing lol Again you refuse to see the massive dichotomy between his results in korea and oversea, well, what can I say, reality escapes you... a guy who collections gsl should have won more oversea tourney, the simple fact you can't realyze it tells everything I need to know about your knowledge of the sc2 scene. And I never stated Maru should be invicible, I actually think he is a bit overrated out there, not much but still a bit and that serral has been continuously better since 2018 but I am not deluded enough to actually think his bo7 against serral is his fucking standart.
The poster you are answering to seems like some sort of troll, there has been a lot of new accounts ever since the goat list.
And yeah, Maru can do better than what he has shown at Dallas. On the other hand, the most important tournament is still EWC. Everyone is gonna practice for this event so it remains to be seen what players come up with.
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On June 06 2024 15:36 stilt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2024 07:59 Perceivere wrote:On June 06 2024 06:03 stilt wrote:On June 06 2024 03:28 Perceivere wrote:On June 06 2024 02:11 stilt wrote:On June 05 2024 18:08 SiarX wrote:
How Rogue is better than Maru? I thought it is widely accepted that Maru is #2. Apparently Rogue has 3 wc... Yes, kato 2020 and 2018 (?????) are wc We didn't know back then but there were two wc per years within sc2, that wasn't the case until Rogue won 2020 tho Never anyone claimed Ace, Yoda, Zest or soO were world champ when they won it but here we are. I suppose only the katowice won by Rogue are wc materials. Truly the most overrated player by the community. As for Maru, his influence over the meta and the scene for over 10 years is unmatched, 11 years as one of the 3 best players of his race, that's something. It's just sad he is a chicken in inter tournament. But it's still not ridiculous to consider him the goat : longevity, adaptability, domination, aside from his performance on no korean tourney and some mental block, he has all it takes. Can someone please explain to me why this supposed "mental block" thing only flips on when he's outside of Korea? Is it the air? The food? Or, the age old excuse: jetlag? What is it about foreign lands that triggers this syndrome that Maru's fans keep attributing to him? Please don't tell me it's homesickness. Superstition abounds when rationality dies. On "adaptability," how well did he adapt to his supposed "mental block" syndrome? Or, his Serral syndrome? Can't believe you think I am maru fanboy when I call him a chicken while debunking rogue's favorable narrative. Anyway, to answer you : - by adaptability, I mean his changement of playstyle, at first Maru was like Clem : a young terran playing with relentless agression, insane multitask, flashy micro and so on and then as he got older, his playstyle evolved into a slower positional style and that change is commandable. - and he is obviously choking, his match against oliveira was shameful, the normal guy played superb, that's true but it's also true maru choked against a somewhat easy opponent. And his last serie against serral was straight up embarassing. It's pretty obvious he didn't play at his normal level, the game on ghost river is so freaking terrible. I have no idea how you can interpret the choking part as a defense for Maru, if anything, it's actually pretty bad for a "goat". I did not call you a "fanboy," nor did I even imply it. The fact that you inferred my comment that way is quite indicative of your mentality. That said, there are indeed a lot of his fanboys who use this assertion of "choking" to suggest his normal ability of play is actually much higher than is shown. On the adaptability point, you still haven't answered my question. Why did he not adapt to his supposed mental weakness that seems to magically appear only when he's competing abroad, according to the people who label him a "choke artist"? Why does he suddenly choke in the grand finals, as opposed to earlier on? To date, when Maru loses abroad, he had placed, on average, higher if not much higher than any other Korean, except Rogue. Dark may have an argument, but not prize money-wise. That $1m+ that Maru earned certainly did not only come from Korean tournaments. Most of it is from tournaments abroad. That's a fact. Those facts suggest Maru had actually done extremely well for himself abroad. You and others simply refuse to acknowledge it for whatever reason, or perhaps have too high an expectation for him, that is far beyond his true ability. Oliveira may have been the weaker player, but there were times when Serral lost 0/1-3/4 to Maru, Reynor, Clem, Rogue, Dark, etc... and around those periods, Serral had by far the better winrates (vs Koreans). It's almost as if players have ups and downs, and by definition they can't always perform at their peak, or even their average. By definition, they have to under-perform, or "choke," at some point. Some of you are expecting Maru's average/expected level to be invincible, when in reality that may only be his peak level. The series at IEM vs Serral, Maru gave Serral a hard fight in game 2. Serral got him build-wise a couple games, and in his final game, it seemed Maru truly just choked. That's normal. All players fluctuate around their average. The crazy thing is when other players perform beneath their average, they don't receive the excuse/insult of "choke artist." When the second best player in the world does it, some of his own fans are primarily the ones to bandy it. Some of Maru's fans truly are the least supportive, most annoying kind, probably even to him. You definitly implied it. About the adaptability part, well, reading comprehension is not your strongest suit, I state how maru changed his gameplay which is an adaptation to his wrists problem and you're rambling about the mental block, that's a lot of words for nothing lol Again you refuse to see the massive dichotomy between his results in korea and oversea, well, what can I say, reality escapes you... a guy who collections gsl should have won more oversea tourney, the simple fact you can't realyze it tells everything I need to know about your knowledge of the sc2 scene. And I never stated Maru should be invicible, I actually think he is a bit overrated out there, not much but still a bit and that serral has been continuously better since 2018 but I am not deluded enough to actually think his bo7 against serral is his fucking standart.
I understood your original point just fine, and I've even commented on how Maru had changed his playstyle, myself, due to chronic injury on reddit, so while we agree on that point, you still missed my specific question, which was not regarding changing playstyle, or injury. It was on his supposed mental weakness, which was what my entire lengthy reply revolved around. What is he doing to improve his mental fortitude outside of Korea, if it were even the case that he had such a problem? That isn't something changing gameplay would or could address. The fact people keep harping on his mental weakness being his biggest limiter, you would think that he would've addressed it already. That would be true adaptation to a mental fault. Changing to a slower playstyle to accommodate his injury isn't going make him any less of a "chicken."
"Again you refuse to see the massive dichotomy between his results in korea and oversea, well, what can I say, reality escapes you... a guy who collections gsl should have won more oversea tourney"
Maru's results abroad, as I had delineated elsewhere on Reddit and another TLnet thread, are far better than you give him credit for. In reality, his overall performance abroad is commensurate with his performance in Korea...that is, he beats everybody most of the time, until he meets someone whose playstyle directly counters his, and whose skill level is a level above his. As for Oliveira, I'm not a TvT expert, so I can't comment much, but by all accounts he did work extremely hard to prepare for last year's IEM, and he did perform exceptionally well in that match with his army control and decision making. Even if Maru was performing below his average, I think it's unreasonable to expect a player to always perform at least their normal level, which by definition is an impossibility. Maru got 2nd place. That's pretty damn good. He did that twice more in other championship runs, and had many more high placements in championship tournaments, and WESG, to boot. Most of his earnings actually come from abroad, not GSLs.
Yes, I think he definitely could've beaten Oliveira. However, my point is the fact that he didn't isn't all that out of the ordinary, for his skill level. That night, the Oliveira working himself to the point of exhaustion narrative was born out by him winning in dominant fashion. He performed at peak strength, and maybe if Maru had also brought out his peak performance, we may have had a different result. You can't expect the guy to be peaking all the damn time. That's impossible for anyone. He's extremely skilled, but his average level is not nearly as invincible as some may have imagined. The fact he's had to take on a slower playstyle is enough evidence of that. As for him vs Serral, it is evident by now that Serral's approach to Maru directly counters Maru's current TvZ style. His ultra rush is designed to hit Maru right before he develops his lategame terran army composition, with full upgrades. Even Serral doesn't want to play Maru lategame, if game 2 of IEM grand finals is any indication of that.
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On June 06 2024 15:34 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2024 15:18 Argonauta wrote:On June 06 2024 14:03 onPHYRE wrote:On June 06 2024 06:24 Tommy131313 wrote:
imho you can't seriously blame jetlag for Maru to (nearly) always lose against Serral. In the case of Dallas, it's almost the same time to fly for both of them, approx. 12 hours.
If you look at all Maru-Serral matches say for the last 3 years, Maru has a map score of 7-29 offline/online (without minor cups). You can search for random explanations for this vast difference, or you can apply ockham's razor and assume, Serral's just better than Maru in the game, at least since 3 years (prolly much longer).
And if you just look at the last 3 major international playoffs, it's even worse for Maru... 0-11 mapscore.
So I don't believe there has to be a GOAT debate anymore, apart from Korean (or GSL) bias. Let’s also not forget that Serral is literally serving his military service. You can talk about it being different than KR military service (and you would be correct), but I think any other player under the reduced practice hours (Serral has stated to a few practice partners that while he can practice on weekends, his time devoted to SC2 has dropped overall due to responsibilities) To add something relevant to this, a person posted on reddit a translated version of Oliveira's reflection on this Dallas event. Here it is: www.reddit.comHe said that Serral has to do service from Monday to Thursday and that he has Friday-Sunday free. He also said that him and Serral were practicing a lot together. If this second hand report is true, those two things tell me that the military service Serral is doing is somewhat very mild. And that glorifying him because of that by comparing it to korean military service is disingenuous at best (at the end of the day South korea is in official war with the North and just a truce stands). Outside of people who aren’t aware the Finnish service is more mild, I don’t thing anyone is making direct equivalencies here. It’s just a factor that is reducing his available practice time, and is being noted as any other factor would be. Pros who came up while, or took up full-time education simultaneously, or pros who have niggling injuries that they have to push less hard. Idk if it’s happened but we’d be acknowledging the same if some pro had to do jury duty in the weeks/months leading up to a big tournament as well
This conversation is like when a player goes back to school and transitions to part time. No one's sitting in their chair going "yeah well, it's just american school. Korean school is much different".
It's just a cool storypoint that they do well despite no longer being full time.
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On June 06 2024 15:30 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2024 14:03 onPHYRE wrote:On June 06 2024 06:24 Tommy131313 wrote:
imho you can't seriously blame jetlag for Maru to (nearly) always lose against Serral. In the case of Dallas, it's almost the same time to fly for both of them, approx. 12 hours.
If you look at all Maru-Serral matches say for the last 3 years, Maru has a map score of 7-29 offline/online (without minor cups). You can search for random explanations for this vast difference, or you can apply ockham's razor and assume, Serral's just better than Maru in the game, at least since 3 years (prolly much longer).
And if you just look at the last 3 major international playoffs, it's even worse for Maru... 0-11 mapscore.
So I don't believe there has to be a GOAT debate anymore, apart from Korean (or GSL) bias. Let’s also not forget that Serral is literally serving his military service. You can talk about it being different than KR military service (and you would be correct), but I think any other player under the reduced practice hours (Serral has stated to a few practice partners that while he can practice on weekends, his time devoted to SC2 has dropped overall due to responsibilities) would have flamed out. Serral just went a casual 14-2 including 7-0 versus Maru/herO (the best of the other 2 races) so it’s not like he had some easy set up. I don’t want to hear about Maru’s jet lag when this man is literally serving in the military (even with special accommodations for sports and his own practice room, it’s clear he won’t be able to practice full time with the biggest SC2 tournament in history coming up - based on $$$). People can debate it all they want and since it generates buzz for the scene I’m good with it. But there is no realistic debate in my mind anymore. Serral is so clearly ahead regardless of what criteria someone needs to elevate to get through the mental gymnastics required. I would be remiss if I didn’t end this by pointing out that not only is Maru one of the most influential players for this esport we all enjoy, but he is very clearly the second best player of all time and even currently. You can shit on him losing 8-0 to Serral in back to back grand finals, but name a player other than Serral (a generational talent) that placed better than Maru.. Reaching the finals they consistently in a game like SC2 is so difficult and no one else is putting up results that can even be compared to these two. If you exclude Serral, Maru would be favored in a best of 7 against any other player in the world right now based on betting odds. What’s crazy is by most standards of the scene’s history Maru is having a truly great 18 months, and that’s even without indulging the ‘what if Serral was absent’ hypothetical, in which case Maru would be having one of the all-time great spans. I can’t recall such a big gap between a number one player and number too, but also not one as large between number two and everybody else.
Hell, for many times in SC2’s history you’ve never had a general consensus best/second best player for such prolonged periods of time.
Sometimes it’s lost in GOAT squabbling but it is truly a pleasure to watch the sheer mastery these two are bringing to bear, and for so many years. Lost a bit in the finals sweep is that herO has been giving every other Zerg problems for some time now, and Serral just absolutely picked him apart as well.
My thoughts exactly. It really is remarkable that we can look at a tournament, and say "Serral/Maru will most likely meet in the finals, unless the bracket makes them meet before that." That's pretty incredible.
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On June 03 2024 22:37 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2024 22:05 LukaMav wrote:
Korea is literally not worthy of Serral’s time. Best player from all 3 matchup literally got stomped
Oliveria was the true competition for Serral
Goat came, conquered, goes back to military like a boss
Veni, vidi, vici for Serral, the #2 GOAT of StarCraft 2 behind #1 Maru 
Exactly. The goat getting 4-0ed twice a year, maybe getting sweeped is the most important attribute of GOAT.
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France12891 Posts
On June 07 2024 06:08 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2024 15:30 WombaT wrote:On June 06 2024 14:03 onPHYRE wrote:On June 06 2024 06:24 Tommy131313 wrote:
imho you can't seriously blame jetlag for Maru to (nearly) always lose against Serral. In the case of Dallas, it's almost the same time to fly for both of them, approx. 12 hours.
If you look at all Maru-Serral matches say for the last 3 years, Maru has a map score of 7-29 offline/online (without minor cups). You can search for random explanations for this vast difference, or you can apply ockham's razor and assume, Serral's just better than Maru in the game, at least since 3 years (prolly much longer).
And if you just look at the last 3 major international playoffs, it's even worse for Maru... 0-11 mapscore.
So I don't believe there has to be a GOAT debate anymore, apart from Korean (or GSL) bias. Let’s also not forget that Serral is literally serving his military service. You can talk about it being different than KR military service (and you would be correct), but I think any other player under the reduced practice hours (Serral has stated to a few practice partners that while he can practice on weekends, his time devoted to SC2 has dropped overall due to responsibilities) would have flamed out. Serral just went a casual 14-2 including 7-0 versus Maru/herO (the best of the other 2 races) so it’s not like he had some easy set up. I don’t want to hear about Maru’s jet lag when this man is literally serving in the military (even with special accommodations for sports and his own practice room, it’s clear he won’t be able to practice full time with the biggest SC2 tournament in history coming up - based on $$$). People can debate it all they want and since it generates buzz for the scene I’m good with it. But there is no realistic debate in my mind anymore. Serral is so clearly ahead regardless of what criteria someone needs to elevate to get through the mental gymnastics required. I would be remiss if I didn’t end this by pointing out that not only is Maru one of the most influential players for this esport we all enjoy, but he is very clearly the second best player of all time and even currently. You can shit on him losing 8-0 to Serral in back to back grand finals, but name a player other than Serral (a generational talent) that placed better than Maru.. Reaching the finals they consistently in a game like SC2 is so difficult and no one else is putting up results that can even be compared to these two. If you exclude Serral, Maru would be favored in a best of 7 against any other player in the world right now based on betting odds. What’s crazy is by most standards of the scene’s history Maru is having a truly great 18 months, and that’s even without indulging the ‘what if Serral was absent’ hypothetical, in which case Maru would be having one of the all-time great spans. I can’t recall such a big gap between a number one player and number too, but also not one as large between number two and everybody else.
Hell, for many times in SC2’s history you’ve never had a general consensus best/second best player for such prolonged periods of time.
Sometimes it’s lost in GOAT squabbling but it is truly a pleasure to watch the sheer mastery these two are bringing to bear, and for so many years. Lost a bit in the finals sweep is that herO has been giving every other Zerg problems for some time now, and Serral just absolutely picked him apart as well. My thoughts exactly. It really is remarkable that we can look at a tournament, and say "Serral/Maru will most likely meet in the finals, unless the bracket makes them meet before that." That's pretty incredible.
As I said somewhere, we now have the equivalent of the 5 gods from SSBM back then, where 5 players dominated absolutely everyone else, and only lost to each other. But there was still a hierarchy between them.
We now have Serral as 1st god and Maru as 2nd god.
Leffen was the first in SSBM to show that those gods were human and bearable, then a lot more players were inspired enough to do it too. They just needed someone to show them it’s possible.
Oliveira was the only player during Dallas to properly show that Serral could bleed, and while Maru was close to losing several times between GSL, StarsWar and Dallas, only Serral was able to show the world that Maru could not merely be beaten, but dominated in the process.
Otoh, Serral showing that you can dominate Maru does not mean that SHIN will be able to do the same after X series losses in a row 
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Northern Ireland25618 Posts
On June 07 2024 06:26 njleslu2024 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2024 22:37 Poopi wrote:On June 03 2024 22:05 LukaMav wrote:
Korea is literally not worthy of Serral’s time. Best player from all 3 matchup literally got stomped
Oliveria was the true competition for Serral
Goat came, conquered, goes back to military like a boss
Veni, vidi, vici for Serral, the #2 GOAT of StarCraft 2 behind #1 Maru Exactly. The goat getting 4-0ed twice a year, maybe getting sweeped is the most important attribute of GOAT.
‘Of all time’ being a rather important component of the GOAT acronym.
Tiger Woods isn’t exactly pulling up trees these days, but he’s walking wounded for years and some young guns smacking him around on the course doesn’t really diminish his overall legacy.
I’d personally pick Serral if I was held at gunpoint and forced to pick a GOAT, but my general position that the scene has so many different eras and structures and having a definitive GOAT is almost impossible to do.
Maru’s been a pro for 14 years, and a tournament champion calibre top, top player for 11 at this stage. He’s had injury issues. Nobody else in the scene has stuck around at the very top for so long, I don’t think Serral smacking him around the last wee while really means a huge amount.
Maru smacked him at WESG 2018 and they just didn’t meet for forever, which is a shame as I think they would have had a great, pretty even rivalry
Expecting Maru to keep that level for a further 6 years atop of everything he’d previously done, when very few players have even done that ever, never mind the priors is a bit much when assessing his whole career.
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On June 07 2024 07:51 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2024 06:26 njleslu2024 wrote:On June 03 2024 22:37 Poopi wrote:On June 03 2024 22:05 LukaMav wrote:
Korea is literally not worthy of Serral’s time. Best player from all 3 matchup literally got stomped
Oliveria was the true competition for Serral
Goat came, conquered, goes back to military like a boss
Veni, vidi, vici for Serral, the #2 GOAT of StarCraft 2 behind #1 Maru Exactly. The goat getting 4-0ed twice a year, maybe getting sweeped is the most important attribute of GOAT. ‘Of all time’ being a rather important component of the GOAT acronym. Tiger Woods isn’t exactly pulling up trees these days, but he’s walking wounded for years and some young guns smacking him around on the course doesn’t really diminish his overall legacy. I’d personally pick Serral if I was held at gunpoint and forced to pick a GOAT, but my general position that the scene has so many different eras and structures and having a definitive GOAT is almost impossible to do. Maru’s been a pro for 14 years, and a tournament champion calibre top, top player for 11 at this stage. He’s had injury issues. Nobody else in the scene has stuck around at the very top for so long, I don’t think Serral smacking him around the last wee while really means a huge amount. Maru smacked him at WESG 2018 and they just didn’t meet for forever, which is a shame as I think they would have had a great, pretty even rivalry Expecting Maru to keep that level for a further 6 years atop of everything he’d previously done, when very few players have even done that ever, never mind the priors is a bit much when assessing his whole career.
Not more important than "greatest". XY and Macsed are 2 players started to play SC2 since 2010, no one consider them as GOAT, not comparable with Oliveira in China, who just started to play in around 2015.
Maru is definitely an admirable player, having such a great career, great achievement and longeveity. But fans always wanna place him above Serral especially in 2024, cherrypicking a lot of so-called advs Maru has but Serral dooesn't, this is just nonsense. In WESG 2017 Serral was not a top player and they did not face frequently until 2023, when both are undoubtedly the top 2 in the world, and then? Serral crushed him quite a few times. This H2H results at least brought a tons of disadvantages for him for contending goat, especially when he has fewer tittles, lower win rate and no world championships.
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On June 04 2024 01:56 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2024 23:13 Jeremy_Sc2 wrote:On June 03 2024 21:09 MJG wrote:On June 03 2024 20:51 Jeremy_Sc2 wrote:
I don't think the asterix by Wax is warranted regarding the ESL 10 trophy. Oliveria has only won 3 Asia region regionals that would qualify as international. The rest were China region before they consolidated the regions in 2023. So while pedantic, the original Asterix was pedantic but also factually wrong. The SEA and TW/HK/MO/JP regionals were pretty irrelevant compared to the China regional, and China itself has something like 3x the population of the EU, so I think the China regionals count just as much as the EU regionals if we're merely wanting to be pedantic... Since we are in a pedantic loop we are talking about 10 international wins (as is the definition of ESL). The China results while there is a valid arguement for being comparable is not technically an international event. He has 7 national titles, and 4 international ones. They are counting international wins, as the title of the trophy and their response on Twitter indicates. There is no need for an asterix in the article because Oli has not met that threshold yet. I think Wax just forgot it was China region before it became the Asia region. There's definitely some pedantry here but I think it's important. National/continental/international haven't been relevant competitive sub-divisions in top tier StarCraft II since WCS 2012, which was held in an Olympics style. When the modern WCS Challenger/EPT Regional systems were set in 2017, China was given its own regional subdivision for practical reasons (the business relationship with NetEase being a big part), not because country-level divisions still meant anything in StarCraft II. As far SC2 fans have been concerned, the only WCS/EPT divisions that have mattered from 2017 onward have been 'regionals/challenger' and 'main event.' Honestly, I'm inclined to think it was a dumb mistake from ESL where they simply forgot about Oliveira's regional titles—they've followed the long standing tradition of presenting the various regionals as somewhat coequal, and it's weird for them to abruptly make such an explicit distinction (while prize money and # of seeds differ, all the regions get the same broadcast presentation and general promotion). If it was intentional, then it's an incredibly cynical retrofitting/invention of a previously non-existent standard ('international EPT tournament') for the sake of giving Serral a trophy. [PS: This is also why every article I edit never says MVP won "4 GSLs" outright, and will have some comment/clarification about how GomTV arbitrarily decided the 2011 GSL World Championship is equal to Code S, even though it's ended up being inconsistent with the rest of GSL history.]
I agree this is a dumb mistake that should be corrected, but also it's telling how little people seem to care, or how few would have noticed had you not pointed it out.
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On June 07 2024 09:05 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2024 01:56 Waxangel wrote:On June 03 2024 23:13 Jeremy_Sc2 wrote:On June 03 2024 21:09 MJG wrote:On June 03 2024 20:51 Jeremy_Sc2 wrote:
I don't think the asterix by Wax is warranted regarding the ESL 10 trophy. Oliveria has only won 3 Asia region regionals that would qualify as international. The rest were China region before they consolidated the regions in 2023. So while pedantic, the original Asterix was pedantic but also factually wrong. The SEA and TW/HK/MO/JP regionals were pretty irrelevant compared to the China regional, and China itself has something like 3x the population of the EU, so I think the China regionals count just as much as the EU regionals if we're merely wanting to be pedantic... Since we are in a pedantic loop we are talking about 10 international wins (as is the definition of ESL). The China results while there is a valid arguement for being comparable is not technically an international event. He has 7 national titles, and 4 international ones. They are counting international wins, as the title of the trophy and their response on Twitter indicates. There is no need for an asterix in the article because Oli has not met that threshold yet. I think Wax just forgot it was China region before it became the Asia region. There's definitely some pedantry here but I think it's important. National/continental/international haven't been relevant competitive sub-divisions in top tier StarCraft II since WCS 2012, which was held in an Olympics style. When the modern WCS Challenger/EPT Regional systems were set in 2017, China was given its own regional subdivision for practical reasons (the business relationship with NetEase being a big part), not because country-level divisions still meant anything in StarCraft II. As far SC2 fans have been concerned, the only WCS/EPT divisions that have mattered from 2017 onward have been 'regionals/challenger' and 'main event.' Honestly, I'm inclined to think it was a dumb mistake from ESL where they simply forgot about Oliveira's regional titles—they've followed the long standing tradition of presenting the various regionals as somewhat coequal, and it's weird for them to abruptly make such an explicit distinction (while prize money and # of seeds differ, all the regions get the same broadcast presentation and general promotion). If it was intentional, then it's an incredibly cynical retrofitting/invention of a previously non-existent standard ('international EPT tournament') for the sake of giving Serral a trophy. [PS: This is also why every article I edit never says MVP won "4 GSLs" outright, and will have some comment/clarification about how GomTV arbitrarily decided the 2011 GSL World Championship is equal to Code S, even though it's ended up being inconsistent with the rest of GSL history.] I agree this is a dumb mistake that should be corrected, but also it's telling how little people seem to care, or how few would have noticed had you not pointed it out.
ESL just wanted to dunk on Miz.
It's pretty pathetic for an organisation backed by blood money a petrostate and more blood money an air force to go out of their way to trash one person's subjective opinion so publicly.
Apollo should apologise. An apollogy, if you will.
I don't think Apollo is specifically to blame. I just wanted to make a pun...
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France12891 Posts
On June 07 2024 07:51 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2024 06:26 njleslu2024 wrote:On June 03 2024 22:37 Poopi wrote:On June 03 2024 22:05 LukaMav wrote:
Korea is literally not worthy of Serral’s time. Best player from all 3 matchup literally got stomped
Oliveria was the true competition for Serral
Goat came, conquered, goes back to military like a boss
Veni, vidi, vici for Serral, the #2 GOAT of StarCraft 2 behind #1 Maru Exactly. The goat getting 4-0ed twice a year, maybe getting sweeped is the most important attribute of GOAT. ‘Of all time’ being a rather important component of the GOAT acronym. Tiger Woods isn’t exactly pulling up trees these days, but he’s walking wounded for years and some young guns smacking him around on the course doesn’t really diminish his overall legacy. I’d personally pick Serral if I was held at gunpoint and forced to pick a GOAT, but my general position that the scene has so many different eras and structures and having a definitive GOAT is almost impossible to do. Maru’s been a pro for 14 years, and a tournament champion calibre top, top player for 11 at this stage. He’s had injury issues. Nobody else in the scene has stuck around at the very top for so long, I don’t think Serral smacking him around the last wee while really means a huge amount. Maru smacked him at WESG 2018 and they just didn’t meet for forever, which is a shame as I think they would have had a great, pretty even rivalry Expecting Maru to keep that level for a further 6 years atop of everything he’d previously done, when very few players have even done that ever, never mind the priors is a bit much when assessing his whole career.
Pretty fine post
As for me, I am currently reassessing if I still view Maru as the GOAT
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Serral has 2 issues for GOAT, he plays Zerg , and he only dominated when the PRO scene was dead
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On June 07 2024 17:23 Drahkn wrote:
Serral has 2 issues for GOAT, he plays Zerg , and he only dominated when the PRO scene was dead
Meaning a GOAT can never be a Zerg and never be anyone playing from 2016 onwards? Got it! Seems reasonable and fair
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On June 07 2024 17:55 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2024 17:23 Drahkn wrote:
Serral has 2 issues for GOAT, he plays Zerg , and he only dominated when the PRO scene was dead Meaning a GOAT can never be a Zerg and never be anyone playing from 2016 onwards? Got it! Seems reasonable and fair
There is a nontrivial minority of Starcraft fans who would only ever allow a Terran to be their GOAT candidate. Having been around since late WoL, it feels like the "Terran is the true skill race" crowd have thinned a bit / got quieter, but certainly haven't gone away.
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France12891 Posts
On June 07 2024 19:31 Ciaus237 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2024 17:55 Harris1st wrote:On June 07 2024 17:23 Drahkn wrote:
Serral has 2 issues for GOAT, he plays Zerg , and he only dominated when the PRO scene was dead Meaning a GOAT can never be a Zerg and never be anyone playing from 2016 onwards? Got it! Seems reasonable and fair There is a nontrivial minority of Starcraft fans who would only ever allow a Terran to be their GOAT candidate. Having been around since late WoL, it feels like the "Terran is the true skill race" crowd have thinned a bit / got quieter, but certainly haven't gone away.
I am pretty sure Drahkn is a protoss player / fan, so he is probably more worried about the fact that protoss ain't even considered for GOAT candidacy (for reasons, maybe design, balance, etc.), rather than if Maru / Serral or Rogue are the GOAT, since they are T/Z while Zest arguably the GOAT of protoss is far behind them in most people lists.
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On June 07 2024 20:35 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2024 19:31 Ciaus237 wrote:On June 07 2024 17:55 Harris1st wrote:On June 07 2024 17:23 Drahkn wrote:
Serral has 2 issues for GOAT, he plays Zerg , and he only dominated when the PRO scene was dead Meaning a GOAT can never be a Zerg and never be anyone playing from 2016 onwards? Got it! Seems reasonable and fair There is a nontrivial minority of Starcraft fans who would only ever allow a Terran to be their GOAT candidate. Having been around since late WoL, it feels like the "Terran is the true skill race" crowd have thinned a bit / got quieter, but certainly haven't gone away. I am pretty sure Drahkn is a protoss player / fan, so he is probably more worried about the fact that protoss ain't even considered for GOAT candidacy (for reasons, maybe design, balance, etc.), rather than if Maru / Serral or Rogue are the GOAT, since they are T/Z while Zest arguably the GOAT of protoss is far behind them in most people lists.
While the "no true skill except Terran fallacy" crowd and the "actually plays / roots for Terran" crowd have big overlap (obviously), they are not the same. My comment also stands more generally: if Maru had the exact same accomplishments with a different race, I do think his GOAT-stock in the community would be very slightly lower because of the aforementioned crowd.
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United States1886 Posts
On June 07 2024 16:52 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2024 09:05 rwala wrote:On June 04 2024 01:56 Waxangel wrote:On June 03 2024 23:13 Jeremy_Sc2 wrote:On June 03 2024 21:09 MJG wrote:On June 03 2024 20:51 Jeremy_Sc2 wrote:
I don't think the asterix by Wax is warranted regarding the ESL 10 trophy. Oliveria has only won 3 Asia region regionals that would qualify as international. The rest were China region before they consolidated the regions in 2023. So while pedantic, the original Asterix was pedantic but also factually wrong. The SEA and TW/HK/MO/JP regionals were pretty irrelevant compared to the China regional, and China itself has something like 3x the population of the EU, so I think the China regionals count just as much as the EU regionals if we're merely wanting to be pedantic... Since we are in a pedantic loop we are talking about 10 international wins (as is the definition of ESL). The China results while there is a valid arguement for being comparable is not technically an international event. He has 7 national titles, and 4 international ones. They are counting international wins, as the title of the trophy and their response on Twitter indicates. There is no need for an asterix in the article because Oli has not met that threshold yet. I think Wax just forgot it was China region before it became the Asia region. There's definitely some pedantry here but I think it's important. National/continental/international haven't been relevant competitive sub-divisions in top tier StarCraft II since WCS 2012, which was held in an Olympics style. When the modern WCS Challenger/EPT Regional systems were set in 2017, China was given its own regional subdivision for practical reasons (the business relationship with NetEase being a big part), not because country-level divisions still meant anything in StarCraft II. As far SC2 fans have been concerned, the only WCS/EPT divisions that have mattered from 2017 onward have been 'regionals/challenger' and 'main event.' Honestly, I'm inclined to think it was a dumb mistake from ESL where they simply forgot about Oliveira's regional titles—they've followed the long standing tradition of presenting the various regionals as somewhat coequal, and it's weird for them to abruptly make such an explicit distinction (while prize money and # of seeds differ, all the regions get the same broadcast presentation and general promotion). If it was intentional, then it's an incredibly cynical retrofitting/invention of a previously non-existent standard ('international EPT tournament') for the sake of giving Serral a trophy. [PS: This is also why every article I edit never says MVP won "4 GSLs" outright, and will have some comment/clarification about how GomTV arbitrarily decided the 2011 GSL World Championship is equal to Code S, even though it's ended up being inconsistent with the rest of GSL history.] I agree this is a dumb mistake that should be corrected, but also it's telling how little people seem to care, or how few would have noticed had you not pointed it out. ESL just wanted to dunk on Miz. It's pretty pathetic for an organisation backed by blood money a petrostate and more blood money an air force to go out of their way to trash one person's subjective opinion so publicly. Apollo should apologise. An apollogy, if you will. I don't think Apollo is specifically to blame. I just wanted to make a pun...
I wish i could say something like "i live in their head rent free.", but I'm genuinely concerned about the pettiness some people have displayed.
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On June 06 2024 14:03 onPHYRE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2024 06:24 Tommy131313 wrote:
imho you can't seriously blame jetlag for Maru to (nearly) always lose against Serral. In the case of Dallas, it's almost the same time to fly for both of them, approx. 12 hours.
If you look at all Maru-Serral matches say for the last 3 years, Maru has a map score of 7-29 offline/online (without minor cups). You can search for random explanations for this vast difference, or you can apply ockham's razor and assume, Serral's just better than Maru in the game, at least since 3 years (prolly much longer).
And if you just look at the last 3 major international playoffs, it's even worse for Maru... 0-11 mapscore.
So I don't believe there has to be a GOAT debate anymore, apart from Korean (or GSL) bias. Let’s also not forget that Serral is literally serving his military service. You can talk about it being different than KR military service (and you would be correct), but I think any other player under the reduced practice hours (Serral has stated to a few practice partners that while he can practice on weekends, his time devoted to SC2 has dropped overall due to responsibilities) would have flamed out. Serral just went a casual 14-2 including 7-0 versus Maru/herO (the best of the other 2 races) so it’s not like he had some easy set up. I don’t want to hear about Maru’s jet lag when this man is literally serving in the military (even with special accommodations for sports and his own practice room, it’s clear he won’t be able to practice full time with the biggest SC2 tournament in history coming up - based on $$$). People can debate it all they want and since it generates buzz for the scene I’m good with it. But there is no realistic debate in my mind anymore. Serral is so clearly ahead regardless of what criteria someone needs to elevate to get through the mental gymnastics required. I would be remiss if I didn’t end this by pointing out that not only is Maru one of the most influential players for this esport we all enjoy, but he is very clearly the second best player of all time and even currently. You can shit on him losing 8-0 to Serral in back to back grand finals, but name a player other than Serral (a generational talent) that placed better than Maru.. Reaching the finals they consistently in a game like SC2 is so difficult and no one else is putting up results that can even be compared to these two. If you exclude Serral, Maru would be favored in a best of 7 against any other player in the world right now based on betting odds.
They have enough history in the last few years they seem quite reminiscent of Jaedong/Flash
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EPT
