Not even mandatory military service could come between Serral and his 26th Liquipedia-Premier tournament championship, as the Finnish Phenom mowed through the competition at DreamHack Dallas in his first competitive appearance since entering the Finnish Defence Forces Sports School. If the other competitors in Dallas had hoped Serral would show signs of rust from his military service that began in April, then they would have been sorely disappointed. Serral put up a 'typical' scoreline on his way to the championship, going 5-0 in series and 14-2 in maps—including a barely competitive 4-0 sweep against Maru in the grand finals. While Maru had proven himself to be the best player of Serral's interregnum by winning Code S Season 1 and StarsWar 11, Serral's emphatic victory made it clear beyond a doubt who still reigns atop the StarCraft II scene in 2024.
Serral's run was not without its challenges—well, one major challenge in the form of Oliveira in the semifinals. The reigning EPT World Champion broke his lengthy slump by giving his best performance since his miracle run at IEM Katowice 2023, defeating Classic (2-1), Stats (2-1), and Reynor (3-1) on his way to the final four. That momentum carried over into his match against Serral, where he gave the eventual champion a brief but very real elimination scare. Oliveira poked holes in his practice partner's usually impervious defense with aggressive 3-base all-ins, using them to push the series all the way to a fifth and final map. Oliveira bet it all on a third, 3-base push in the deciding game, but Serral pulled off a clutch defense to survive to reach the finals.
Up until the finals, Maru had arguably gone on just as impressive a run as Serral, going undefeated in the Winners Bracket before taking out top players herO (3-2) and Dark (3-1) in the playoffs. Such a showing briefly raised hopes that the jinxed Maru-Serral clash might finally deliver the epic match fans had been hoping for since 2018. Serral, in a rare, unintentional instance of trash talk, expressed the same sentiment, saying he hoped it wouldn't be as easy as his 4-0 in the finals of IEM Katowice 2024.
However, the rematch proved to be even more one-sided than the previous clash. If Katowice had seen Maru put in at least one stellar, late-game defensive showcase on Radhuset Station, Serral denied him the opportunity at a repeat performance by being utterly ruthless and finishing the games before they could go long. In particular, Serral expertly exploited the windows right after he reached Hive Tech, and ended up extracting the championship-clinching GG's at 11:20, 10:54, 9:19, and 8:28 on the clock.
Even a player like Serral who's seen and done nearly everything in his 10+ year career can have new experience now and then, and in Dallas he concluded the tournament by hoisting not one but two trophies. After receiving the standard trophy for winning the individual event, Serral was also awarded a commemorative trophy for winning "10 international tournaments*" in the ESL/DreamHack Masters circuit.
*Stage host Chobra listed Serral's three EPT/DHM Europe Regionals as part of his tally. If Regionals are included in the count, then Oliveira has also achieved the count of ten.
Upsets, Surprises, and Other Notable Happenings
While DreamHack Dallas ended on a note of inevitability with Serral winning the finals, there were a handful of surprises and upsets to be found in the rest of the tournament.
Oliveira's strong showing was counterbalanced by a disappointing performance from DreamHack Atlanta champion Clem, who crashed out in the top 12 after losing to Stats, HeroMarine, and herO. Cure, one of the the most consistent players of the EPT 2023/24 season, also finished in the top 12 after losing to the mercurial SHIN. Indeed, the strong version of SHIN showed up to play in Dallas, who also beat Stats and Astrea on his way to the RO8. However, in the playoffs, SHIN couldn't recreate his upset over Serral from IEM Katowice 2023, and had to bow out of the tournament one step away from confirming an Esports World Cup spot.
The Open Bracket is known for being exceptionally brutal in the current EPT format, and ByuN impressed by winning six straight matches to make it all the way to the RO8 before losing to Dark (notable wins against trigger, Stats, and HeroMarine). However, the most eye-catching player from the Open Bracket was probably Rogue, who was barely two months back from Korean military service and competing in his first international event since his return. He showed glimpses of his world champion class by surviving the Open Bracket gauntlet (with two wins over Solar), but could advance no further after drawing Clem as his first opponent in the knockout bracket. Alongside Solar, the Open Bracket also claimed Ryung, SKillous, DRG, soO, Harstem, Bunny, and Cyan as its victims.
What was projected to be a fairly predictable Esports World Cup qualification race was given a last-minute twist due to Oliveira's surprise run to the top four. While Oliveira himself had already locked in an Esports World Cup seed due being the confirmed point leader from the Asia region, he earned himself a duplicate seed due to his top four finish. EPT rules dictate that Oliveira 'uses' the seed from DreamHack Dallas, while his seed from EPT Asia rolls down to the next highest point earner in the Asia region.
At the moment, that next runner-up happens to be Coffee with 790 points, but he's closely trailed by Cyan with 780 (EPT Asia standings chart). With ESL Open Cups awarding 10 points for a win and 5 points for a runner-up finish, we might see these two go all out in the remaining weeks of Open Cup play to try and secure a spot (ESL has yet to announce when the point standings will lock).
Grand Finals Match Recap:
Game One - Post-Youth (Serral win): Maru opened with 2-Barracks Reapers while taking his in-base natural, while Serral got into a normal Post-Youth 3-base setup by taking his in-base expansion and his natural. Serral opted to play Roach-Ravager-Baneling into a fast Hive, while Maru took a long-term outlook by macroing up to four bases.
However, a late-game showdown did not come to pass as Serral struck with his maxed out Roach-Ravager-Zergling-Baneling swarm once he had two Vipers with full energy. The attack was meant to burn off some supply for a transition into Ultralisks, but almost ended the game outright as it hit right before Maru was able to get fully entrenched behind a Planetary Fortress. While Maru barely survived the first wave of attackers, the follow-up Ultralisks came soon after to force the GG.
Game Two - Ghost River (Serral win): Both players altered their initial strategies in game two, with Maru opening Hellion-Banshee while Serral went for a Roach-Ravager-Infestor mid-game without Banelings. However, the two players ultimately had similar goals as in game one, with Maru looking to play a longer macro game while Serral aimed to tech quickly to Ultralisks.
While Serral had initially maxed out on Lair-tech units in the previous game, this time around he opted to stay on a more modest Roach-Ravager army and go straight into Ultralisk production and Chitinous Plating research once his Ultralisk Cavern was complete.
This resulted in Serral catching Maru totally off guard with a swarm of +2 carapace, Chitinous upgraded Ultralisks at the ten minute mark, when the Terran army consisted mostly of 1/1 Marines supported by a handful of Tanks. Maru had no chance of stopping these super-tanky Ultralisks and was forced to surrender another quick GG.
Game Three - Goldenaura (Serral win): Maru began with Cyclone-Liberator harass in the early game, dealing some marginal damage before setting himself up on three bases. Changing his approach from the previous two games, Maru decided to commit hard to an 8-Barracks all-in off of three bases. Serral also changed his gameplan, playing a more conventional Ling-Bane composition and foregoing the fast Hive of the first two games.
As is often the case, Serral's diligent scouting allowed him to sniff out Maru's aggressive intentions, and he prepared a Ling-Bane backdoor to strike just as Maru moved out. Maru got caught with his natural wall down at the absolute wrong moment (although Serral's backdoor would still have done meaningful damage regardless), and Serral's Ling-Bane ended up doing massive economic damage while also forcing Maru's army to retreat and defend.
Maru had no choice but to recommit fully to his all-in, despite having all the air taken out of it before it even started. Serral had no trouble fending off the severely hamstrung attack, and received Maru's third GG after a one-sided defensive battle.
Game Four - Crimson Court (Serral win): Maru went for yet another different opener, this time going for a greedy 3-CC-before-Factory start. As for Serral, it initially seemed like he was going back to his Roach-Ravager into fast Hive setup from game two, but he gave it a twist by staying on Lair tech and getting a Nydus Worm for a committed attack with Roach-Ravager.
With a Nydus Worm tunneling into the Terran main as a diversion, Serral sent his main army to Maru's third base for a head on assault. Rather than lift and retreat back to the natural, Maru decided to engage Serral right then and there, which ended up being a massacre as he was vastly outgunned by the near-max Roach-Ravager force. Maru belatedly tried to set up a second defensive line at his natural, but it was too late as the situation had already snowballed out of control. Serral easily plowed through this second line of defenders as well, leaving Maru no choice but to concede another 0-4 sweep.
Credits and acknowledgements
Writer: Wax Images & Photos: ESL, Liquipedia. Records and Statistics: Aligulac.com and Liquipedia
Congratulations to Serral. I did not believe it would be possible to win yet another tournament in such a dominating fashion while doing the military service, whatever exactly that means for him in his special program. Props also to Maru and especially Oliveira. Apparently, and with hindsight obviously, playing hundreds upon hundreds of practice games against Serral is the best and perhaps only preparation against him right now.
Have to say that Oliveira brought the most exciting matches in the whole tournament otherwise it would be a tranquil champion for Serral and for audience.
Honestly, if Maru wants to win any international events, it seems like he will need someone else to take out Serral earlier. That final was very uninspiring. What's more is that since they are EPT #1 and #2, Maru will likely avoid Serral until the grand final if the group stage goes accordingly for them. So, in the future, there is a decent possibility for more lackluster S-M finals.
On June 03 2024 17:37 mintyminmus wrote: Honestly, if Maru wants to win any international events, it seems like he will need someone else to take out Serral earlier. That final was very uninspiring. What's more is that since they are EPT #1 and #2, Maru will likely avoid Serral until the grand final if the group stage goes accordingly for them. So, in the future, there is a decent possibility for more lackluster S-M finals.
considering how much money is on the line for the esports world cup, the fact serral has to go return to military service and will have another 2 months of reduce practice time, I hope maru returns to Korea and truly studies serral's game so he can have a decent plan on how to beat serral next time, the odds are in his favor tbh, and it's worth it financially for him.
On June 03 2024 18:25 toinewx wrote: The Goat conversation is likely to see an uptick. This is what happens when you want to make a definitive list on an ever shifting situation
It's a snapshot of a moment in time. Everything is fluid
On June 03 2024 18:25 toinewx wrote: The Goat conversation is likely to see an uptick. This is what happens when you want to make a definitive list on an ever shifting situation
I don't see it as an ever shifting situation... Let's face it: Serral has been the best player in the world since 2018-2019 apart from GSL, which he's not interested in partecipating in. Reynor has contested that dominance in some cases and sometimes it seemed that he had figured out (mentally) how to beat him, but that sensation has ended soon! Maru is clearly the best player in Korea and has been for long time, but outside of Korea his results are not comparable to Serral's. GSL is not anymore EVERYTHING; SC2 is in a state in which we have championship-caliber player coming from Korea, Asia and Europe, so in my opinion the best is someone who can beat everyone else and Serral simply is the only one who can do it on a regular base.
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.
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...
On June 03 2024 18:25 toinewx wrote: The Goat conversation is likely to see an uptick. This is what happens when you want to make a definitive list on an ever shifting situation
It's a snapshot of a moment in time. Everything is fluid
I love those snapshots, specially when they enrage a good chunk of people!
On June 03 2024 17:37 mintyminmus wrote: Honestly, if Maru wants to win any international events, it seems like he will need someone else to take out Serral earlier. That final was very uninspiring. What's more is that since they are EPT #1 and #2, Maru will likely avoid Serral until the grand final if the group stage goes accordingly for them. So, in the future, there is a decent possibility for more lackluster S-M finals.
Would he even have won had he met Oliveira? Maru cannot win on international soil, it's a curse (bad mentality).
I felt rly bad for herO beating Clem 3-0 and then only having 15 minutes before the next games started against Maru, and he didn't even know that he would face him. This is pretty bullshit, but perhaps he wanted as small a break as possible, who knows. A Serral vs. herO finals would've been much, much better, though I do like ever establishing storylines, such as Maru not winning abroad, Serral dumping on Maru, Serral always winning. Had Oliveira beat Maru that would've probably been even greater tho
I don't think this finals was as onesided, actually. In this one Serral did not want to find out what happens late game, he would probably lose there, but still Maru was dumbfounded, not catching on to what was happening. In Katowice Serral beat him vs. Mech, vs. Bio, vs. late game and with a cheese, it doesn't get more dominant than that. That said Maru reaching the finals everytime is at this point more likely than even Zerg winning, so the consistency is out of this world.
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.
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.]
On June 04 2024 00:36 THERIDDLER wrote: Poor maru, unlike his opposition, he never managed to get any of his buddies onto the council
Ah yes, Serral, the GOAT won because of race when Maru literally just 3-1’ed the top Korean Z (and #2 in the world by almost all metrics behind Serral).
Congrats to Serral, despite serving in the military.
Uninspiring finals for sure. Maru fumbling hard at these EU/NA events is just depressing, hoping to see him bring his full game to Riyadh. I wonder if this has to do with the 14 hours jet lags, it usually takes about a week to fix. He should probably look into traveling to the competition site a lot earlier. But I bet organizer wouldn't pay for the expenses.
Oliveira put in a great show, always enjoyed his victory celebration/emotions.
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.]
You should probably ask Oliveira if he cares, if you can connect with him. Otherwise, I don't see the point of being so dramatic about it. It's just a milestone marker, anyway. There's no prize money behind it, and it's not like the award was announced years ahead of time. Just arbitrated/false glory. The WBC (a boxing sanction body) also had an arbitrary achievement award, called the diamond belt, and a couple boxers had rejected it when offered to them. To them, the only belts that mattered were belts that they had fought specifically to attain. (edit: Well, the critical difference is that the WBC also charged the boxers a fee to keep the lame belt. I guess in Serral's case, there'd be no reason to refuse the milestone trophy.)
Also, as much as I'm fully in the camp of Serral being the GOAT, I disapprove of the organization declaring it officially when they handed him that trophy. That title should be only within the minds and hearts of fans, not adjudicated by an authority, especially since they hadn't declared their criteria for that title. They didn't even bother to make a short speech, delineating each of every win he took to earn it. Makes the title seem cheap and tacky, imo, and the occasion unprofessional. If you're going to officially declare someone the GOAT, you'd better damn well back it up with at least a 2 minute-minimum speech. Yikes.
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.]
Has no one thought that ESL simply took Liquipedia's premier classification into consideration?
EU regionals are considered Premier tier - alongside GSL, while all the other regionals are Major tier.
It makes sense honestly. EU is way higher level than Asian regional.
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.]
You should probably ask Oliveira if he cares, if you can connect with him. Otherwise, I don't see the point of being so dramatic about it. It's just a milestone marker, anyway. There's no prize money behind it, and it's not like the award was announced years ahead of time. Just arbitrated/false glory. The WBC (a boxing sanction body) also had an arbitrary achievement award, called the diamond belt, and a couple boxers had rejected it when offered to them. To them, the only belts that mattered were belts that they had fought specifically to attain. (edit: Well, the critical difference is that the WBC also charged the boxers a fee to keep the lame belt. I guess in Serral's case, there'd be no reason to refuse the milestone trophy.)
Also, as much as I'm fully in the camp of Serral being the GOAT, I disapprove of the organization declaring it officially when they handed him that trophy. That title should be only within the minds and hearts of fans, not adjudicated by an authority, especially since they hadn't declared their criteria for that title. They didn't even bother to make a short speech, delineating each of every win he took to earn it. Makes the title seem cheap and tacky, imo, and the occasion unprofessional. If you're going to officially declare someone the GOAT, you'd better damn well back it up with at least a 2 minute-minimum speech. Yikes.
Agree 100%.
Although said trophy makes the scene buzz and scream. Which is gud.
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.]
Has no one thought that ESL simply took Liquipedia's premier classification into consideration?
EU regionals are considered Premier tier - alongside GSL, while all the other regionals are Major tier.
It makes sense honestly. EU is way higher level than Asian regional.
that's prolly how they researched it, but not the way they present it externally because A) Liquipedia is not a partner org with EPT, B) Liquipedia users/editors actively dislike LP distinctions being used for professional-level decisions.
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.]
You should probably ask Oliveira if he cares, if you can connect with him. Otherwise, I don't see the point of being so dramatic about it. It's just a milestone marker, anyway. There's no prize money behind it, and it's not like the award was announced years ahead of time. Just arbitrated/false glory. The WBC (a boxing sanction body) also had an arbitrary achievement award, called the diamond belt, and a couple boxers had rejected it when offered to them. To them, the only belts that mattered were belts that they had fought specifically to attain. (edit: Well, the critical difference is that the WBC also charged the boxers a fee to keep the lame belt. I guess in Serral's case, there'd be no reason to refuse the milestone trophy.)
Also, as much as I'm fully in the camp of Serral being the GOAT, I disapprove of the organization declaring it officially when they handed him that trophy. That title should be only within the minds and hearts of fans, not adjudicated by an authority, especially since they hadn't declared their criteria for that title. They didn't even bother to make a short speech, delineating each of every win he took to earn it. Makes the title seem cheap and tacky, imo, and the occasion unprofessional. If you're going to officially declare someone the GOAT, you'd better damn well back it up with at least a 2 minute-minimum speech. Yikes.
No one would have been mad about some kind of generic GJ Serral lifetime achievement award trophy, and I don't mind the general concept of giving him a special trophy. But someone has to be the rules lawyer because otherwise people and orgs will just arbitrarily rewrite history and narratives to their convenience. And I think it's pretty self-evident why we should get the history RIGHT.
In any case, there's an easy win-win fix of giving fan-favorite Oliveira his own E10L trophy at Riyadh
And I think it's pretty self-evident why we should get the history RIGHT.
Is it self-evident? Maybe I'm just too ignorant but to me it isn't, so could you spell it out for someone stupid like me? Views change every day in all GOAT debates about what counts as what, and not just talking about the TL GOAT list vs Reddit, can just look at the debate that Artosis and Feardragon are having right now on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
And no one is "re-writing" history, it is all just different interpretations. The only thing that is written in stone is what the official world championship was in any given year, and even here aforementioned people add their own interpretations by adding or removing certain Katowice tournaments willy-nilly ("because it was online", "but it was during COVID", "there was another tournament that season that was WC", and so on).
I also don't understand your point before - "Liquipedia users/editors actively dislike LP distinctions being used for professional-level decisions". First of all, why do they dislike this; secondly, when you say "actively" I guess there's some communication that documents that; and thirdly, does ESL care about what a TL user thinks? If they think the categorisation makes sense, why not use it? Maybe they just didn't want to spell it out on stage to put too much emphasis on TL. It reminds me of transfermarkt.de in football, which is a site where random casual football fans estimate players' value, and obviously those shouldn't be used in professional contracts involving triple digit million valuations. But, there's plenty of evidence that it is having an impact and is being used, albeit no one admits it officially and publically, but there's plenty of leaks.
As much as we're all fanboying over Oliveira this weekend, if you want to give him a E10L trophy there's probably another one due for other regions and then it becomes really just trophy-madness.
It was quite clear that they just wanted to take their cheeky jab at the debate that's been going on nonstop between all the scene's big figures for half a year now.
On June 03 2024 17:37 mintyminmus wrote: Honestly, if Maru wants to win any international events, it seems like he will need someone else to take out Serral earlier. That final was very uninspiring. What's more is that since they are EPT #1 and #2, Maru will likely avoid Serral until the grand final if the group stage goes accordingly for them. So, in the future, there is a decent possibility for more lackluster S-M finals.
Would he even have won had he met Oliveira? Maru cannot win on international soil, it's a curse (bad mentality).
I felt rly bad for herO beating Clem 3-0 and then only having 15 minutes before the next games started against Maru, and he didn't even know that he would face him. This is pretty bullshit, but perhaps he wanted as small a break as possible, who knows. A Serral vs. herO finals would've been much, much better, though I do like ever establishing storylines, such as Maru not winning abroad, Serral dumping on Maru, Serral always winning. Had Oliveira beat Maru that would've probably been even greater tho
I don't think this finals was as onesided, actually. In this one Serral did not want to find out what happens late game, he would probably lose there, but still Maru was dumbfounded, not catching on to what was happening. In Katowice Serral beat him vs. Mech, vs. Bio, vs. late game and with a cheese, it doesn't get more dominant than that. That said Maru reaching the finals everytime is at this point more likely than even Zerg winning, so the consistency is out of this world.
The turn around time for herO before Maru was fast, but it wasn’t 15 minutes and he did know he was playing Maru. The winner of that portion of the bracket knew they were slotting into the spot that was against Maru from the night before once day 1 ended. A few of the Koreans (from the first quadrant) even made comments about the difficulty of the knockout bracket and how they get slotted into Maru for the Playoffs if they win.
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
True. Maru the Goat on TL forum
The community consensus is Serral goat.
But to the general population, Maru sits comfortable at #3
3 behind who? :S
Mvp and Innovation. Obviously.
(I assume they mean Rogue as #2).
I’m not a Rogue anti-fan by any means but I might actually place Inno there myself. That first incarnation of the machine was a terrifying prospect, but it’s quite difficult to justify that via objective metrics
On June 05 2024 18:08 SiarX wrote: How Rogue is better than Maru? I thought it is widely accepted that Maru is #2.
I don't think it's widely accepted that Maru is #2.
It's widely accepted that Maru and Serral are #1 and #2 in some order though.
Right now? Or in 2018? Cause right now. On this day in the year 2024. Anybody who thinks maru is better than serral, after going a combined 0-8 in grand finals, needs to get their head checked.
Again, I am talking about the present time, and not about the past ten years.
On June 05 2024 18:08 SiarX wrote: How Rogue is better than Maru? I thought it is widely accepted that Maru is #2.
I don't think it's widely accepted that Maru is #2.
It's widely accepted that Maru and Serral are #1 and #2 in some order though.
Right now? Or in 2018? Cause right now. On this day in the year 2024. Anybody who thinks maru is better than serral, after going a combined 0-8 in grand finals, needs to get their head checked.
Again, I am talking about the present time, and not about the past ten years.
I assumed they were referring to the GOAT debate, since that's what the original quote chain leads back to. There is a difference between Greatest of All Time and Greatest Right This Second. Serral is probably GRTS but I don't think that makes him GOAT.
It's a shame that GRTS doesn't quite have the same ring to it...
... and I don't have a horse in the Maru/Serral debate. Legacy of the Void is kind of a joke to me.
On June 05 2024 18:08 SiarX wrote: How Rogue is better than Maru? I thought it is widely accepted that Maru is #2.
I don't think it's widely accepted that Maru is #2.
It's widely accepted that Maru and Serral are #1 and #2 in some order though.
Right now? Or in 2018? Cause right now. On this day in the year 2024. Anybody who thinks maru is better than serral, after going a combined 0-8 in grand finals, needs to get their head checked.
Again, I am talking about the present time, and not about the past ten years.
I assumed they were referring to the GOAT debate, since that's what the original quote chain leads back to. There is a difference between Greatest of All Time and Greatest Right This Second. Serral is probably GRTS but I don't think that makes him GOAT.
It's a shame that GRTS doesn't quite have the same ring to it...
... and I don't have a horse in the Maru/Serral debate. Legacy of the Void is kind of a joke to me.
I understand the sentiment. At this point though, the articles are 3 months old, and yesterdays news. I no longer consider them to be worthy of discussing. It was fun while it lasted. The rage-bait has run its course.
On June 05 2024 18:08 SiarX wrote: How Rogue is better than Maru? I thought it is widely accepted that Maru is #2.
I don't think it's widely accepted that Maru is #2.
It's widely accepted that Maru and Serral are #1 and #2 in some order though.
Right now? Or in 2018? Cause right now. On this day in the year 2024. Anybody who thinks maru is better than serral, after going a combined 0-8 in grand finals, needs to get their head checked.
Again, I am talking about the present time, and not about the past ten years.
i was banned for making a much more harmless post i sayd "maybe naive" can someone explain to me why i was banned for my thread , and this thread is fine ? my thread is on maru#nr 1 page 34 from weyoun
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.
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?
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".
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.
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.
I want to say there has been remarkable little excuses from the Maru-fans after Dallas. If you go by some comments, Katowice apparently was the most unfair tournament of all time, with jetlag for Maru, bracket-manipulation, imbalance, an unfair mapool, timetables in favor of Serral, bad qualification splits and much so more. Sure, some of it was trolling, but there was this general sentiment from the Maru-fans.
Now, I barely see any stupid excuses. Most Maru-fans, even the hardcore fans, just acknowledged that Serral won by being the better player and that Maru needs to change up something at EWC to make it competitive between the two - because right now Serral clearly has his number.
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.
Choke is unfair IMO, equally I mean Maru hasn’t stepped up either and dug really deep in those big finals in recent times.
End of the day he is still outperforming everyone else, which tends to be understated a bit.
I do wonder if it’s some kind of mental block though. The one set where Maru really brought his A game was the one on Radushet [sic?] where Serral had a pretty big map advantage to begin with.
If Maru brought that level more often there’s no way he’s getting swept twice in a row, although ofc doesn’t necessarily mean he reverses the result.
I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility that Maru figured ‘I’m fucked this map anyway’ and treated it as a free hit, and going in pessimistic relaxed him a bit to play his best game.
On June 06 2024 08:48 WombaT wrote: Choke is unfair IMO, equally I mean Maru hasn’t stepped up either and dug really deep in those big finals in recent times.
End of the day he is still outperforming everyone else, which tends to be understated a bit.
I do wonder if it’s some kind of mental block though. The one set where Maru really brought his A game was the one on Radushet [sic?] where Serral had a pretty big map advantage to begin with.
If Maru brought that level more often there’s no way he’s getting swept twice in a row, although ofc doesn’t necessarily mean he reverses the result.
I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility that Maru figured ‘I’m fucked this map anyway’ and treated it as a free hit, and going in pessimistic relaxed him a bit to play his best game.
How do people define mental block? The way it's been bandied feels to me like it's almost synonymous to "choke habit." After the second game, Maru may have felt very low on energy. I mean, he arguably gave his best effort in a long, hard struggle, and it wasn't even enough. And then, the game was followed by a decisive attack that countered his build. After that, he must've felt truly defeated and depleted. Is it a "mental block," or just mental drain, which every player experiences? His style also matches poorly against Serral's, which has nothing to do with mentality.
"I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility that Maru figured ‘I’m fucked this map anyway’ and treated it as a free hit, and going in pessimistic relaxed him a bit to play his best game."
Interesting...? Serral had in the past performed better on maps that were supposedly unfavorable for zerg. In his case, however, I'm not sure if it has anything to do with mentality.
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.
On June 05 2024 18:08 SiarX wrote: How Rogue is better than Maru? I thought it is widely accepted that Maru is #2.
It’s closer of an argument than you expected. I and most people have Maru at #3.
Before Rogue went to military he had the same amount of GSL as Maru (4). At the same time, Rogue had 2 world championships under his belt already. All of Maru’s GSL after Rogue went to military gets weaker and weaker
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.
He 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).
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.
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.
He 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
He 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Even Serral doesn't want to play Maru lategame, if game 2 of IEM grand finals is any indication of that.
Don't get me wrong cause I agree with most of the sentiment in your post, but I don't think this conclusion is warranted. Just because Serral killed Maru early does not imply he's scared of his opponent's late-game. All we can really conclude from the results is that Serral saw a kill timing, went for it, and was successful on multiple occasions.
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...
The fact that this comment hasn't resulted in a ban just goes to show how trash TLnet's moderation has become. But go ahead and ban me instead for calling you out - I won't be missing anything.
Even Serral doesn't want to play Maru lategame, if game 2 of IEM grand finals is any indication of that.
Don't get me wrong cause I agree with most of the sentiment in your post, but I don't think this conclusion is warranted. Just because Serral killed Maru early does not imply he's scared of his opponent's late-game. All we can really conclude from the results is that Serral saw a kill timing, went for it, and was successful on multiple occasions.
I didn't mean that he's scared. I meant that he doesn't want to have to work like a possessed demon for 20-30 minutes trying to win a terran-favored lategame. Maru just turtles up, mules, scans, and pewpews with his ghosts, while Serral multitasks like his brain is on fire trying to control 6-7 different control groups attacking and defending, while macroing and re-spreading creep. It looks extremely taxing for a zerg to do what Serral does at his nutty APM, even if he pulls it off. People watch and think how impressive it is, while I'm wondering to myself, "what kind of stamina does a player need to do this insane shit game after game?"
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 think this has mostly to do with the fact that Terran is the most micro-intensive race. When you see excellent terran micro, the crowd goes oooh and aaah. It's a crowd-pleasing race, and it gives the impression that terran is most skilled.
What the crowd doesn't see is that the impressive things zergs do aren't nearly as visually flashy while still just as impressive. Except for Clem, I haven't seen a Terran who multitasks like Serral or Reynor, bouncing from screen to screen like a pinball. Their FPVs are nauseating.
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
I don't know about the Zerg part, but I don't see anything particularly controversial about your second statement tbh. That's the difference between being a 'greatest of all time' and 'best of the rest', and it is a significant difference. That is of course if you agree that overall level of competition declined after 2016.
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
I don't know about the Zerg part, but I don't see anything particularly controversial about your second statement tbh. That's the difference between being a 'greatest of all time' and 'best of the rest', and it is a significant difference. That is of course if you agree that overall level of competition declined after 2016.
After 2016, as in the era where Serral exists, Reynor who won IEM and Gamers8 exists, and Clem who had a DH win and several regional wins at the expense of the best player exists...is somehow weaker than an era that was bloated with a bunch of Code A players, Code B players, and western players who weren't even on par with Snute, except Neeb and maybe Scarlett.
Please. Slightly weaker in Korea, sure. For the entire world, it got much more competitive. It's not like any of those Code A players would ever get a chance to qualify for the globals to threaten Serral's reign, anyway. Even a large chunk of current Code S players today either routinely fail to qualify for globals, or would only be fodder for the top players.
Only the money has significantly changed, which didn't really dip until 2021, and it only largely affected the motivation of players who are around the peripheral of the top10, who wouldn't threaten Serral regardless of money. The top players continued to practice hard and improve, because winning the world championship is still very lucrative, and prestigious—hello, Oliveira. Lately, the scene had also received a large injection of money from a certain controversial source.
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
I don't know about the Zerg part, but I don't see anything particularly controversial about your second statement tbh. That's the difference between being a 'greatest of all time' and 'best of the rest', and it is a significant difference. That is of course if you agree that overall level of competition declined after 2016.
After 2016, as in the era where Serral exists, Reynor who won IEM and Gamers8 exists, and Clem who had a DH win and several regional wins at the expense of the best player exists...is somehow weaker than an era that was bloated with a bunch of Code A players, Code B players, and western players who weren't even on par with Snute, except Neeb and maybe Scarlett.
Please. Slightly weaker in Korea, sure. For the entire world, it got much more competitive. It's not like any of those Code A players would ever get a chance to qualify for the globals to threaten Serral's reign, anyway. Even a large chunk of current Code S players today either routinely fail to qualify for globals, or would only be fodder for the top players.
Only the money has significantly changed, which didn't really dip until 2021, and it only largely affected the motivation of players who are around the peripheral of the top10, who wouldn't threaten Serral regardless of money. The top players continued to practice hard and improve, because winning the world championship is still very lucrative, and prestigious—hello, Oliveira. Lately, the scene had also received a large injection of money from a certain controversial source.
Exatly. Does anyone think that the Maru of 2015 plays better than the Maru nowadays?
I think people mess a little bit with the causality of things.
If other top players had had the same success (aka skill) as Maru, they would have continued playing. If they left, its because it got harder for them. Who kept on, kept on because they were either - hopeful to win or actually winning, like Maru, Rogue, sOs etc.
The creme de la creme stayed. Because they were that good. And a very few talented prodigys appeared in the scene, in a championship contender level.
Back in 2014, 15, people who entered in the fray when SCII came up started realizing that, even if they practiced a lot, they wouldnt thrive. So eventually the Code A, and low Code S semi and full professionals started leaving.
The strongest remained. And by that, i mean the true strongest OF STARCRAFT II. Not the ones who had spent 5 or 10+ years playing another game (like BW or WC 3). Which means, those who where young enough, like Serral, Maru or even HeroMarine to truly grow up inside the game.
Maru is the strongest korean SCII player, so far, who has lived. Anyone who would have been his equal or better simply wouldnt have had reason to leave.
And Serral is better than Maru. Has been since 2018, with ample data to show for it.
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
I don't know about the Zerg part, but I don't see anything particularly controversial about your second statement tbh. That's the difference between being a 'greatest of all time' and 'best of the rest', and it is a significant difference. That is of course if you agree that overall level of competition declined after 2016.
After 2016, as in the era where Serral exists, Reynor who won IEM and Gamers8 exists, and Clem who had a DH win and several regional wins at the expense of the best player exists...is somehow weaker than an era that was bloated with a bunch of Code A players, Code B players, and western players who weren't even on par with Snute, except Neeb and maybe Scarlett.
Please. Slightly weaker in Korea, sure. For the entire world, it got much more competitive. It's not like any of those Code A players would ever get a chance to qualify for the globals to threaten Serral's reign, anyway. Even a large chunk of current Code S players today either routinely fail to qualify for globals, or would only be fodder for the top players.
Only the money has significantly changed, which didn't really dip until 2021, and it only largely affected the motivation of players who are around the peripheral of the top10, who wouldn't threaten Serral regardless of money. The top players continued to practice hard and improve, because winning the world championship is still very lucrative, and prestigious—hello, Oliveira. Lately, the scene had also received a large injection of money from a certain controversial source.
Exatly. Does anyone think that the Maru of 2015 plays better than the Maru nowadays?
I think people mess a little bit with the causality of things.
If other top players had had the same success (aka skill) as Maru, they would have continued playing. If they left, its because it got harder for them. Who kept on, kept on because they were either - hopeful to win or actually winning, like Maru, Rogue, sOs etc.
The creme de la creme stayed. Because they were that good. And a very few talented prodigys appeared in the scene, in a championship contender level.
Back in 2014, 15, people who entered in the fray when SCII came up started realizing that, even if they practiced a lot, they wouldnt thrive. So eventually the Code A, and low Code S semi and full professionals started leaving.
The strongest remained. And by that, i mean the true strongest OF STARCRAFT II. Not the ones who had spent 5 or 10+ years playing another game (like BW or WC 3). Which means, those who where young enough, like Serral, Maru or even HeroMarine to truly grow up inside the game.
Maru is the strongest korean SCII player, so far, who has lived. Anyone who would have been his equal or better simply wouldnt have had reason to leave.
And Serral is better than Maru. Has been since 2018, with ample data to show for it.
Good point in that we’re seeing pure SC2 players bursting through these days. Well, by ‘these days’ I mean years ago.
IIRC you even have scenarios where parents absolutely loved SC1 and got their kids going in their formative years of SC2, Clem being one
On June 10 2024 04:25 Locutos wrote: If other top players had had the same success (aka skill) as Maru, they would have continued playing. If they left, its because it got harder for them. Who kept on, kept on because they were either - hopeful to win or actually winning, like Maru, Rogue, sOs etc.
The creme de la creme stayed. Because they were that good. And a very few talented prodigys appeared in the scene, in a championship contender level.
Back in 2014, 15, people who entered in the fray when SCII came up started realizing that, even if they practiced a lot, they wouldnt thrive. So eventually the Code A, and low Code S semi and full professionals started leaving.
The strongest remained. And by that, i mean the true strongest OF STARCRAFT II. Not the ones who had spent 5 or 10+ years playing another game (like BW or WC 3). Which means, those who where young enough, like Serral, Maru or even HeroMarine to truly grow up inside the game.
Maru is the strongest korean SCII player, so far, who has lived. Anyone who would have been his equal or better simply wouldnt have had reason to leave.
I disagree, while you arent wrong I think you undervalue the importance of 2 factors:
1.- The importance of new blood: If you look at the history of GSL 2010-2015 you can see what we now know where the top players of the time to be Royal Roaders, that is players that won the first GSL they qualified for, hell the undisputable king of WoL Mvp was defeated by one in his last GSL finals. Sure those who are left are the best but when was the last time we had new talent capable of beating them? Only a few in the EU scene in Clem and Reynor (who are hardy new players btw, the have been semi-pro/pro level for a few years now they are just old enought to compete now).
2.- Money truly matters, I do think a lot of retired pros like Inno or Zest would have stayed if they thought there was enough money in the scene to live off but thats just not the case anymore.
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
You're being sarcastic, but that's how I view it.
Proleague collapsing means that I view subsequent tournaments as being of ever diminishing importance. There was a time when GSL winners being knocked down into Code A in the following season happened regularly enough that the difficulty of simply staying in Code S could not be overstated, but now there's neither enough players nor enough funding for Code A to exist. Iron sharpens iron, but much less so when the competitive pool becomes so shallow, and that's enough for me to draw a very distinct line in the sand.
As for Zerg, we had two versions of the game where a general overview of Starcraft 2 strategy would tell us that Zerg is the race that benefits most from being able to take faster expansions, from having larger maps, from having more open maps, and from the game being less "deathbally". Legacy of the Void was specifically designed so that we need to take faster expansions, so that the maps are generally larger, so that the maps are generally more open, and so that the game is significantly less "deathbally". Zerg has gone on to win more money than any other race in Legacy of the Void. This is going to read as balance whine, but I don't think it's a balance issue. No amount of tweaking unit stats is going to make a significant difference to core design flaws that result from Blizzard's decision to move to a 12 worker start and fewer minerals per base...
EDIT:
I really commend Miz for going out of his way to ignore things that are outside of the players' control in his analysis. It's the proper way of doing things if you're going to make such a statistics-heavy analysis of the situation. My view of things contains a lot more "feeling" and so becomes much more subjective (in what is already a very subjective space), but I don't "feel" that anyone only prominent in this era can ever be the GOAT because LotV is far too flawed...
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
You're being sarcastic, but that's how I view it.
Proleague collapsing means that the competitive value of subsequent tournaments is of ever diminishing importance. There was a time when GSL winners being knocked down into Code A in the following season happened regularly enough that the difficulty of simply staying in Code S could not be overstated, but now there's neither enough players nor funding for Code A to exist. It's enough for me to draw a very distinct line in the sand.
As for Zerg, we had two versions of the game where a general overview of Starcraft 2 strategy would tell us that Zerg is the race that benefits most from being able to take faster expansions, from having larger maps, from having more open maps, and from the game being less "deathbally". Legacy of the Void made it so that we need to take faster expansions, the maps are generally larger, the maps are generally more open, and the game is significantly less "deathbally". Zerg has gone on to win more money than any other race in Legacy of the Void. I can't imagine why...
To a degree, although I think it’s somewhat overstated.
Outside of perhaps early WoL, where things very much were in flux, Code S has generally had a (relatively) stable cadre of names at the business end of the tournament.
You had more qualification mishaps, group exits by big tournament favourites for sure, but I think the decline at the other end, of ‘eyeballing it, how many do you think can realistically challenge for the title this season?’ was something of a noticeably slower decline.
Not that I dispute the overall observation of the gradual loss of depth, but it became easier to perpetually remain in Code S at a quicker rate than it did actually winning one.
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
I don't know about the Zerg part, but I don't see anything particularly controversial about your second statement tbh. That's the difference between being a 'greatest of all time' and 'best of the rest', and it is a significant difference. That is of course if you agree that overall level of competition declined after 2016.
After 2016, as in the era where Serral exists, Reynor who won IEM and Gamers8 exists, and Clem who had a DH win and several regional wins at the expense of the best player exists...is somehow weaker than an era that was bloated with a bunch of Code A players, Code B players, and western players who weren't even on par with Snute, except Neeb and maybe Scarlett.
Please. Slightly weaker in Korea, sure. For the entire world, it got much more competitive. It's not like any of those Code A players would ever get a chance to qualify for the globals to threaten Serral's reign, anyway. Even a large chunk of current Code S players today either routinely fail to qualify for globals, or would only be fodder for the top players.
Only the money has significantly changed, which didn't really dip until 2021, and it only largely affected the motivation of players who are around the peripheral of the top10, who wouldn't threaten Serral regardless of money. The top players continued to practice hard and improve, because winning the world championship is still very lucrative, and prestigious—hello, Oliveira. Lately, the scene had also received a large injection of money from a certain controversial source.
Exatly. Does anyone think that the Maru of 2015 plays better than the Maru nowadays?
I think people mess a little bit with the causality of things.
If other top players had had the same success (aka skill) as Maru, they would have continued playing. If they left, its because it got harder for them. Who kept on, kept on because they were either - hopeful to win or actually winning, like Maru, Rogue, sOs etc.
The creme de la creme stayed. Because they were that good. And a very few talented prodigys appeared in the scene, in a championship contender level.
Back in 2014, 15, people who entered in the fray when SCII came up started realizing that, even if they practiced a lot, they wouldnt thrive. So eventually the Code A, and low Code S semi and full professionals started leaving.
The strongest remained. And by that, i mean the true strongest OF STARCRAFT II. Not the ones who had spent 5 or 10+ years playing another game (like BW or WC 3). Which means, those who where young enough, like Serral, Maru or even HeroMarine to truly grow up inside the game.
Maru is the strongest korean SCII player, so far, who has lived. Anyone who would have been his equal or better simply wouldnt have had reason to leave.
And Serral is better than Maru. Has been since 2018, with ample data to show for it.
Maru won his first pro match in 2010. In 2015, he was a well-respected player but nobody in their right mind would call him the best, or anything close to that. He only really started to shine around 2018, incidentally, that's also the year when Serral started to win stuff, too. Serral himself had been on various teams for over 5 years by then. Rogue came to SC2 in 2012 yet his first notable achievements didn't happen until 2017.
Are you telling me those super talented, elite, goat-level players simply took so long to learn how to play? That doesn't seem like the most likely explanation to me, considering both in BW and SC2 the championship caliber players typically started winning tournaments within 1-2 years of winning their first pro matches. I can't even think of a single pro who took 5 years to get their first big trophy that would then go on to 'dominate' the game. It's the same in pretty much every other video game, too. The dudes who don't have it in them to win big after a couple years don't become an all-conquering maverick half a decade later; the best they get is a brief moment in the spotlight when everything falls into place for that one big tournament.
But apparently the dudes who won their first tourneys after basically every big name before them retired or went part-time and all the infrastructure that produced said big names bit the dust are the best to have ever touched this game? Ehhhhhh.
SC2 now goes into its 15th year and a lot happened. For me the first 5 years were interesting because it was volatile and everchanging meta with a lot of players. But the game and the meta got more stable with LoTv (with exceptions ofc *swarm hosts*) and the game has reached its final form more or less. True there are less players and it's a pity. But the game itself got better and for me so did the remaining players.
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
I don't know about the Zerg part, but I don't see anything particularly controversial about your second statement tbh. That's the difference between being a 'greatest of all time' and 'best of the rest', and it is a significant difference. That is of course if you agree that overall level of competition declined after 2016.
After 2016, as in the era where Serral exists, Reynor who won IEM and Gamers8 exists, and Clem who had a DH win and several regional wins at the expense of the best player exists...is somehow weaker than an era that was bloated with a bunch of Code A players, Code B players, and western players who weren't even on par with Snute, except Neeb and maybe Scarlett.
Please. Slightly weaker in Korea, sure. For the entire world, it got much more competitive. It's not like any of those Code A players would ever get a chance to qualify for the globals to threaten Serral's reign, anyway. Even a large chunk of current Code S players today either routinely fail to qualify for globals, or would only be fodder for the top players.
Only the money has significantly changed, which didn't really dip until 2021, and it only largely affected the motivation of players who are around the peripheral of the top10, who wouldn't threaten Serral regardless of money. The top players continued to practice hard and improve, because winning the world championship is still very lucrative, and prestigious—hello, Oliveira. Lately, the scene had also received a large injection of money from a certain controversial source.
Exatly. Does anyone think that the Maru of 2015 plays better than the Maru nowadays?
I think people mess a little bit with the causality of things.
If other top players had had the same success (aka skill) as Maru, they would have continued playing. If they left, its because it got harder for them. Who kept on, kept on because they were either - hopeful to win or actually winning, like Maru, Rogue, sOs etc.
The creme de la creme stayed. Because they were that good. And a very few talented prodigys appeared in the scene, in a championship contender level.
Back in 2014, 15, people who entered in the fray when SCII came up started realizing that, even if they practiced a lot, they wouldnt thrive. So eventually the Code A, and low Code S semi and full professionals started leaving.
The strongest remained. And by that, i mean the true strongest OF STARCRAFT II. Not the ones who had spent 5 or 10+ years playing another game (like BW or WC 3). Which means, those who where young enough, like Serral, Maru or even HeroMarine to truly grow up inside the game.
Maru is the strongest korean SCII player, so far, who has lived. Anyone who would have been his equal or better simply wouldnt have had reason to leave.
And Serral is better than Maru. Has been since 2018, with ample data to show for it.
Maru won his first pro match in 2010. In 2015, he was a well-respected player but nobody in their right mind would call him the best, or anything close to that. He only really started to shine around 2018, incidentally, that's also the year when Serral started to win stuff, too. Serral himself had been on various teams for over 5 years by then. Rogue came to SC2 in 2012 yet his first notable achievements didn't happen until 2017.
Are you telling me those super talented, elite, goat-level players simply took so long to learn how to play? That doesn't seem like the most likely explanation to me, considering both in BW and SC2 the championship caliber players typically started winning tournaments within 1-2 years of winning their first pro matches. I can't even think of a single pro who took 5 years to get their first big trophy that would then go on to 'dominate' the game. It's the same in pretty much every other video game, too. The dudes who don't have it in them to win big after a couple years don't become an all-conquering maverick half a decade later; the best they get is a brief moment in the spotlight when everything falls into place for that one big tournament.
But apparently the dudes who won their first tourneys after basically every big name before them retired or went part-time and all the infrastructure that produced said big names bit the dust are the best to have ever touched this game? Ehhhhhh.
Serral had obviously played a lot of the game, very talented and was picked up orgs, I don’t think he was actually a full time progamer for quite a while and as soon as he was he was posting pretty good results off the bat. It’s not like he was some jobbing pro for years prior to ‘ascending’
SC2 in general hasn’t really had its dominant players throughout, it was generally pretty cutthroat, the odd sensational stretch but generally one would be among a cadre of the elite and unable to massively gap the rest.
That’s definitely changed, for a variety of reasons and I think Serral and Maru would comfortably be nestled in that cohort if things had gone differently.
As it’s they’re pretty damn dominant now, but one can only beat what’s in front of you at the end of the day.
Part of the reason they are so ahead is they’ve kept their motivation and levels up. Whereas a player like Innovation who very much fits your exploding out of the gates to championship level couldn’t keep it up.
I don’t know other eSports scenes well enough, although I think there are a million examples in various regular sports of dominant players who hit their level from an early age and never let go, late bloomers and incredible talents who burned out before they were 25
Just a pity really that these are all hypotheticals in a gradually declining pro scene, rather than the likes of Serral going toe to toe with the cream of the Kespa crop of this age rather than those who’ve stuck around for a decade. Woulda been fun
On June 11 2024 12:18 AlexGano wrote: If people sees "all time" as so important, then we should kick mvp out of the top 10 list
Jesse, what the eff are you talking about meme MVP is clearly in the top 10, behind Serral, Serral with a mustache, and Emperor of Finland, and Maru, Rogue, Innovation
On June 11 2024 12:18 AlexGano wrote: If people sees "all time" as so important, then we should kick mvp out of the top 10 list
???
What Mvp achieved in a scene that was thriving is more impressive to me than anything anyone will achieve in a scene that is dying.
They're both impressive. I don't believe that MVP if he had his golden years back that he would be able to make a dent in the current scene, but then I also don't think that Serral could dominate at all in the way that he does now, if he was playing back in the beginning. They're simply two different skill sets, it's strategy, understanding and innovation vs. execution and perfecting.
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