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On June 12 2024 03:27 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2024 03:05 Charoisaur wrote:On June 12 2024 02:34 Pandain wrote:On June 12 2024 01:27 Charoisaur wrote:On June 12 2024 00:57 ejozl wrote:It's exactly what he is and this is from Serral's 2018 streak alone. I didn't watch any Flash in BW, I just watched very early games from Grrr...., BoXeR, very little Savior, Jaedong, Bisu and Stork. But Flash's 2010 results are VERY comparable to Serral's 2018 results. And remember Flash was hailed as god, GOAT and Bonjwa by all of BW casters entering SC2. This means Flash was Flash before his return to BW. I personally think that the culmination of Blizzcon 2018 was the peak of SC2 skill in sc2, same as when Flash had his results, I assume. Serral did win with the strongest race, but so did Flash. Before going to SC2, Fantasy was also starting to fight back on the dominance, so it's not like his record was perfect either, neither is Serral's. Current Serral results are definitely not meaningless, but I can see the problem with counting these results as the same, since that would mean that if you just hang around long enough, you become one of the best. ASL also has a huge asterix on it, is it really as competitive now as it once was?, I don't think so. I came from WC3 and there we had really great players, but nothing like the dominance that we see with Serral. The 2018 was really special and it should not be undermined. If SC2 would've had bonjwas Rogue would've been the first and then Serral. This is not really proof of anything, but Snute, whom was able to compete somewhat with koreans in a feat of absolute perseverance finally quit because of Serral. On June 05 2024 23:01 LukaMav wrote:
Probably better than Flash
Serral won during the peak (skillwise)
Anything before LOTV was relatively low skill (current high master , low GM at best). People need to remember casters has mentioned many times that any current diamond could win GSL in WOL
User was banned for this post. I only disagree with comparing former pros to high master, low GM, but this is something even Artosis says, but I guess he would've been banned for trolling as well??, yeah, no.. Hard disagree on Serral's 2018 - Right now Serral is the most dominant player ever but his 2018 is way overrated. He got 0-3ed in IEM Katowice and WESG and then didn't lose a series for the rest of the year... which sounds impressive but looking deeper into it he entered only 2 tournaments with all the best players in the world. Winning two tournaments in a row is good, but others have done that too. Rogue even won 3 tournaments in a row in 2017 with IEM Shanghai - GSL Super tournament and Blizzcon. The only thing Serral's 2018 has over Rogue's streak (or ByuN, Dear, Maru, all the other players that won 2 tournaments in a row) is additionally farming a circuit where he faced Has and Mana in the finals You're leaving out HSC 18,  HomeStory Cup/18, where Serral also beat Bunny, Bly, Trap, soO, Stephano, souL, Hellsraiser, Taeja, uThermal, Bunny again, and Innovation. I mean these kinds of three major tournament wins in a row are crazy impressive. But the absolutely insane thing is not like any single tournament alone, including the WCS region locked ones. It's that across an insane amount of series he didn't lose one.. Even the absolute top dogs at any time would regularly drop a series. Serral going like 60-0 (or whatever he did) is immensely more impressive then going 59-1. I left HSC out because it didn't qualify for the criteria of including "all the best players in the world". Serral going 60-0 is impressive and unique but unique mostly because the opponents top players face are usually much better on average. If the criteria is ‘all of the best players in the world’ then GSL hasn’t had that for 6 years. Homestory Cup is a more relaxed tournament, and the field does tend to fluctuate in quality tournament to tournament but that’s a pretty decent list of scalps.
Yeah I'm fine with not counting recent GSLs under this criteria.
During Maru's 4 peat though virtually all top players (everyone except Serral) were playing in GSL which is still a significant step up from HSC
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Northern Ireland26255 Posts
I don’t think anyone is arguing that HSC is equivalent to a GSL, merely that given a pretty decent field it’s impressive as part of a wider year which included a preposterously long span of not losing a series in competition.
It’s that Serral was just winning all the time that’s the impressive part, not merely the trophies. He’s not barely scraping out of groups, or relying on a second bite of the cherry in a double elimination bracket.
Plus his failures of the year are losing to Maru at WESG and winning the third place playoff, and a semi-final at Katowice.
Even a Blizzcon, a 3rd and a semi-final in those 3 big money events is a fine year for an SC2 pro, if you add literally winning everything else you entered for the rest of the year, minus Nationwars (where you still got 2 all-kills for a one-man team effectively) I’ve a hard time considering that year overrated
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On June 12 2024 11:14 WombaT wrote:
I don’t think anyone is arguing that HSC is equivalent to a GSL, merely that given a pretty decent field it’s impressive as part of a wider year which included a preposterously long span of not losing a series in competition.
It’s that Serral was just winning all the time that’s the impressive part, not merely the trophies. He’s not barely scraping out of groups, or relying on a second bite of the cherry in a double elimination bracket.
Plus his failures of the year are losing to Maru at WESG and winning the third place playoff, and a semi-final at Katowice.
Even a Blizzcon, a 3rd and a semi-final in those 3 big money events is a fine year for an SC2 pro, if you add literally winning everything else you entered for the rest of the year, minus Nationwars (where you still got 2 all-kills for a one-man team effectively) I’ve a hard time considering that year overrated
The user talked about Serral's 2018 results being comparable to Flash's 2010. In that context it's overrated as I view even Rogue's 2017 and Maru's 2018 better than Serral's 2018.
On its own Serral's 2018 was of course extremely impressive and one of the best years a player had but it often gets talked better than it was, probably because people just get so dazzled by the unprecedented unbeaten streak, which is again, while impressive not quite as impressive as it sounds if you look deeper into it.
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It's because the games speak for themselves. I would agree that Serral didn't have the strongest streak achievement wise, he won 4 HSC's in a row which is one of the craziest results, but these 4 were invitational, so they're basically disqualified. I don't find it fair to give this to Serral, when other players who could've contested the result never had the chance to. It would've been different had it just had 1 global qualifier, or korean qualifier or what have you.
The WCS's do count though, remember that Serral could not get to where he is without the other non-koreans paving the way. Snute, Nerchio, Neeb, Scarlett and others.
Around this period Neeb won Kespa cup and got to the ro4 in the GSL beating Rogue. Scarlett won Pyongchang and got to the ro8 in the GSL beating Zest and INnoVation. Then we had the 2019 GSL vs. the World where Classic was the only Korean making it to the ro4. Has and MaNa never repeated this success, but they did rise to the occasion, it wasn't that the tournaments were barren.
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Flash dominated the KESPA era and changed the meta in every matchup. It isn't even close to comparable. I'm cool if you feel like maybe he could be the GOAT of SC2 even though I don't think that is the case, but he will never be anywhere near the level of flash's career even if he dominates from here on out.
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While Serral is undoubtedly highest skilled player ever in SC2, as game is at highest level played now, there's a huge downside on the relative competition being at all time low, with very limited playerpool and pro pool and there being no new blood at all. Serral did "prove" it by dominating in 2018 when remnants of proleague competitiveness still remained, but it still was after Korean scene seriously declined.
He also has astrelisk due to lack of GSL, but at this point, I think that point is a large moot, as Serral has shown to perform in various high stake tournaments and overwhelmingly crushed maru multiple times. However, the astrelisk on him really is on him becoming good only after relative competition was down - other greats like innovation had to play against competitiion incredibly fierce with very deep pro pool that it was much harder to maintain dominance in, whereas pro pool now is limited to very few players that are aging.
On other hand, FlaSh performed both at BW's relative competitive peak in proleague days and skill peak in ASL days. However, most korean communities disregard ASL achievements mostly with grain of salt due to there being less relative competition, as there has always been generation cycles and upcoming players that replaced previous greats in past. That stopped at end of proleague era where players like soulkey, innovation, soo and others moved on to sc2.
If SnOw starts dominating ASL like he dominants BW online proleagues, i dont think he would be registered as GOAT as it's era beyond the peak "aliveness" of the scene. Don't get me wrong, BW in korea is still very healthy viewership and money wise, but its having same problem as SC2 on new blood being far and few.
Now, you can argue GOAT is just measuring greastest of all time skill-wise, but if you just go purely by that without accounting other factors like relative competition, other sports GOAT wouldn't apply as modern players are arguably better pure skill-wise compared to say Pele or Gretzky. It's unfortunate that Serral became amazing as he is bit too late as I'm pretty sure he would have performed very well during Proleague era as well, but this alone is a huge question mark on him.
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On June 05 2024 23:01 LukaMav wrote:
Probably better than Flash
Serral won during the peak (skillwise)
Anything before LOTV was relatively low skill (current high master , low GM at best). People need to remember casters has mentioned many times that any current diamond could win GSL in WOL
User was banned for this post.
I know it's bait but it's insane there's actually people that seriously believe this- all you have to do is play the game to understand how low level ladder at master league is. This opinion I've only really seriously seen among players who never got to said leagues to understand that. Skillgap from pro to GM is lot bigger than GM to bronze league lol.
Current Diamond is actually not that different from HOTS era diamond and same goes to master. Just because top end of playerbase/pros got better doesn't mean general playerbase did. You still see sit still and macro gain incredibly advantage well into master 2-3s from just not missing macro cycles lol.
People say same thing about BW, like comparing 2006 or 2007 games to B rank. But then you have people who were aspiring progamers entering mid 30s and failing courage tournaments start playing BW again and hitting 2300+ MMR in few days even when they failed becoming progamer in 2000s.
People will always be talented even across different era man. Those top level improvement do not reflect at all to playerbase level.
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On June 21 2024 11:27 jinjin5000 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2024 23:01 LukaMav wrote:
Probably better than Flash
Serral won during the peak (skillwise)
Anything before LOTV was relatively low skill (current high master , low GM at best). People need to remember casters has mentioned many times that any current diamond could win GSL in WOL
User was banned for this post. I know it's bait but it's insane there's actually people that seriously believe this- all you have to do is play the game to understand how low level ladder at master league is. This opinion I've only really seriously seen among players who never got to said leagues to understand that. Skillgap from pro to GM is lot bigger than GM to bronze league lol. Current Diamond is actually not that different from HOTS era diamond and same goes to master. Just because top end of playerbase/pros got better doesn't mean general playerbase did. You still see sit still and macro gain incredibly advantage well into master 2-3s from just not missing macro cycles lol. People say same thing about BW, like comparing 2006 or 2007 games to B rank. But then you have people who were aspiring progamers entering mid 30s and failing courage tournaments start playing BW again and hitting 2300+ MMR in few days even when they failed becoming progamer in 2000s. People will always be talented even across different era man. Those top level improvement do not reflect at all to playerbase level.
To add to this, I've seen a few times when low-mid WoL GMs who haven't played since 2012 come back and regain high Master very easily, all they have to do is macro even if they don't know the strats.
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Not close, Flash dominated when Broodwar was still in its prime. Serral (at no fault of his own) has dominated in the post "dead game" era of SC2
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Serral dominates in like 5 player league? lol. Flash dominated when BW skill was at peak. 2009 BW had so many young guns trying to make pros and teams sponsored by big time corporations (samsung/etc) trying to snipe flash. When flash lost it was usually due to losing vs cheeses or builds that were specifically meant to magnify his weakness. When flash lost long games they became "must see" games.
Koreans can't even name 5 pros who participated in GSL/etc way back in 2018. SC2 was like such a dead game in korean scene.
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France12908 Posts
On June 21 2024 12:07 RPR_Tempest wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2024 11:27 jinjin5000 wrote:On June 05 2024 23:01 LukaMav wrote:
Probably better than Flash
Serral won during the peak (skillwise)
Anything before LOTV was relatively low skill (current high master , low GM at best). People need to remember casters has mentioned many times that any current diamond could win GSL in WOL
User was banned for this post. I know it's bait but it's insane there's actually people that seriously believe this- all you have to do is play the game to understand how low level ladder at master league is. This opinion I've only really seriously seen among players who never got to said leagues to understand that. Skillgap from pro to GM is lot bigger than GM to bronze league lol. Current Diamond is actually not that different from HOTS era diamond and same goes to master. Just because top end of playerbase/pros got better doesn't mean general playerbase did. You still see sit still and macro gain incredibly advantage well into master 2-3s from just not missing macro cycles lol. People say same thing about BW, like comparing 2006 or 2007 games to B rank. But then you have people who were aspiring progamers entering mid 30s and failing courage tournaments start playing BW again and hitting 2300+ MMR in few days even when they failed becoming progamer in 2000s. People will always be talented even across different era man. Those top level improvement do not reflect at all to playerbase level. To add to this, I've seen a few times when low-mid WoL GMs who haven't played since 2012 come back and regain high Master very easily, all they have to do is macro even if they don't know the strats.
It depends on the players though. Adelscott and GoOdy were good back in WoL, but since they are "slow hands" type of players, LotV doesn't suit them well imho, so that's why they get stuck relatively quickly (especially GoOdy) despite playing a significant amount of LotV. Otoh, someone who was good mechanically in WoL could come back and be decent at LotV pretty quickly
Being patient / taking good decisions is easier to "coach" someone into (like Lambo with Reynor) if they have good mechanics; while if your hands are not capable of executing fast you'll have to find workaround for more situations
But yeah the skillgap between pros and random GM is very very big.
There are a lot of layers in Starcraft 2, it's just that there is also a lot of variance in sc2 that makes people think the skill gap isn't as big as it actually is
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Cat amongst the pigeons but I’ll have a crack.
Flash is the BW goat, yes but the transition to sc2 in the 2010s took out some of his biggest rivals. I’d argue Jangbi and Fantasy at a minimum had surpassed him. It’s a bit of a shame neither ever came back to BW seriously.
Flash was obvs practising a lot of sc2 by the end but his era of dominance faded after the KA OSL2.
Alright, come at me BW nerds.
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France12908 Posts
On June 21 2024 19:36 RowdierBob wrote:
Cat amongst the pigeons but I’ll have a crack.
Flash is the BW goat, yes but the transition to sc2 in the 2010s took out some of his biggest rivals. I’d argue Jangbi and Fantasy at a minimum had surpassed him. It’s a bit of a shame neither ever came back to BW seriously.
Flash was obvs practising a lot of sc2 by the end but his era of dominance faded after the KA OSL2.
Alright, come at me BW nerds.
I don't have much knowledge about BW, but I have the gut feeling that INnoVation would have ended up destroying everyone in BW if Kespa players weren't forced to play sc2
I mean, he might not have the sheer motivation to keep dominating / destroying people, but I am pretty sure that there would be at least a decent portion of time in which he would have been invincible
However, maintaining your dominance is what separates "GOAT" contenders from merely Bonjwa (afaik) ; so given Flash's work ethic, it's highly probable he would have found a way to remain the top dog in BW, no matter his competition (be it FantaSy, jangbi, Rain, INno, whatever...)
That's probably INno's biggest flaw: the guy is too complacent because he is incredibly fucking gifted, and he knows it.
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United States1913 Posts
On June 21 2024 19:47 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2024 19:36 RowdierBob wrote:
Cat amongst the pigeons but I’ll have a crack.
Flash is the BW goat, yes but the transition to sc2 in the 2010s took out some of his biggest rivals. I’d argue Jangbi and Fantasy at a minimum had surpassed him. It’s a bit of a shame neither ever came back to BW seriously.
Flash was obvs practising a lot of sc2 by the end but his era of dominance faded after the KA OSL2.
Alright, come at me BW nerds. I don't have much knowledge about BW, but I have the gut feeling that INnoVation would have ended up destroying everyone in BW if Kespa players weren't forced to play sc2 I mean, he might not have the sheer motivation to keep dominating / destroying people, but I am pretty sure that there would be at least a decent portion of time in which he would have been invincible However, maintaining your dominance is what separates "GOAT" contenders from merely Bonjwa (afaik) ; so given Flash's work ethic, it's highly probable he would have found a way to remain the top dog in BW, no matter his competition (be it FantaSy, jangbi, Rain, INno, whatever...) That's probably INno's biggest flaw: the guy is too complacent because he is incredibly fucking gifted, and he knows it.
The guy was receiving a max salary from SKT for multiple years. Even when he didn't do so well individually, he was one of the team's best players in Proleague and was making roughly 80-90k a year USD because of it. He knew that as long as he did the minimum and showed out in Proleague he wouldn't be hurting for dough.
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That might be one of the biggest differences / motivators between BW and SC2
In SC2 to take the bigger cuts you actually had to perform individually while in BW most money comes in as salary and team wins.
Don't have numbers, feel free to correct me
EDIT: Serral has 3-4 times the winnings of Flash in a 4th of the timespan. That's like 16 times more effective. Obviously inflation is a thing but still
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On June 21 2024 20:10 Harris1st wrote:
That might be one of the biggest differences / motivators between BW and SC2
In SC2 to take the bigger cuts you actually had to perform individually while in BW most money comes in as salary and team wins.
Don't have numbers, feel free to correct me
EDIT: Serral has 3-4 times the winnings of Flash in a 4th of the timespan. That's like 16 times more effective. Obviously inflation is a thing but still
is this a serious post lol
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EPT
