This is an extra special one for me, with the legendary herO. Him and I covered his best Proleague memory, thoughts on the GOAT debate, the reason Protoss has been struggling and more! I hope you all enjoy it =D
Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
The 2nd best Zerg is Reynor or Dark, who have won a World Championship and multiple offline events (DH/Gamers8/GSL). The 2nd best Terran is either Clem or Cure who hasnt even reach the Final or a World Championship, and has won a combine of TWO offline event (1GSL and 1DH). And you think the gap between Serral and the 2nd Zerg is BIGGER than Maru and the 2nd Terran?
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
The 2nd best Zerg is Reynor or Dark, who have won a World Championship and multiple offline events (DH/Gamers8/GSL). The 2nd best Terran is either Clem or Cure who hasnt even reach the Final or a World Championship, and has won a combine of TWO offline event (1GSL and 1DH). And you think the gap between Serral and the 2nd Zerg is BIGGER than Maru and the 2nd Terran?
To rank Dark or Reynor above Rogue on an all time list is a joke dude
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
The 2nd best Zerg is Reynor or Dark, who have won a World Championship and multiple offline events (DH/Gamers8/GSL). The 2nd best Terran is either Clem or Cure who hasnt even reach the Final or a World Championship, and has won a combine of TWO offline event (1GSL and 1DH). And you think the gap between Serral and the 2nd Zerg is BIGGER than Maru and the 2nd Terran?
Cure made the finals of Gamers 8, he’s in the Ro4 of GSL yet again.
If you read my post I specified since 2023 started. And I was talking about win rates in response to Poopi’s comments.
By the historic standards of SC2 Maru has had a great year/18months, on balance better than everyone bar Serral.
Even with that fantastic period, other Terrans are still closer to Maru than other Zergs are to Serral, if we’re talking consistency.
If the argument is that optimal Zerg play is easier to maintain, well it’s only Serral who is actually doing it
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
The 2nd best Zerg is Reynor or Dark, who have won a World Championship and multiple offline events (DH/Gamers8/GSL). The 2nd best Terran is either Clem or Cure who hasnt even reach the Final or a World Championship, and has won a combine of TWO offline event (1GSL and 1DH). And you think the gap between Serral and the 2nd Zerg is BIGGER than Maru and the 2nd Terran?
To rank Dark or Reynor above Rogue on an all time list is a joke dude
Since he was referring to the previous post, which said: "Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.", I think he was referring to Clem and Cure winrates since 2023 to now, and Reynor / Dark for zerg since 2023 to now. I didn't check the stats, maybe it's Solar but it can't really be Rogue who was in the military
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
The 2nd best Zerg is Reynor or Dark, who have won a World Championship and multiple offline events (DH/Gamers8/GSL). The 2nd best Terran is either Clem or Cure who hasnt even reach the Final or a World Championship, and has won a combine of TWO offline event (1GSL and 1DH). And you think the gap between Serral and the 2nd Zerg is BIGGER than Maru and the 2nd Terran?
To rank Dark or Reynor above Rogue on an all time list is a joke dude
Since he was referring to the previous post, which said: "Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.", I think he was referring to Clem and Cure winrates since 2023 to now, and Reynor / Dark for zerg since 2023 to now. I didn't check the stats, maybe it's Solar but it can't really be Rogue who was in the military
Yeah, thats why I said 2nd best Zerg (imply in the present), not the 2nd GREATEST Zerg.
As for Womba, even if you consider 2023 till now, there hasnt been much consistency from other Terran. Cure still struggle in top TvZ, and his TvP has dropped off considerably since the previous patch. Clem has not done much in offline tournament except for Atlanta. Oliveira pop up hugely twice but other than that has not showed up neither. Meanwhile Dark make multiple Ro4 and Reynor won Gamers8 despite his inconsistency. I just dont buy the gap is bigger between the top 2 Zerg than the top 2 Terran.
Clem beat Maru at Gamer’s 8, he had a good run at Katowice but Serral dispatched him. He’s won an offline international and he’s won some EU titles. For 18 months that’s not bad at all, then add to that he’s good results in EU regionals
Cure’s got a Katowice Ro4, a Gamer’s 8 final, a GSL final and two GSL Ro4s (one still ongoing)
Those are solid results, the top Zergs may have slightly better ones, and overall be still maybe slightly stronger at a punch.
But my point is that Serral is further ahead of other Zergs than Maru is of fellow Ts, and I think this is broadly correct in terms of overall results.
When I last crunched numbers Serral’s match win rate was genuinely preposterous, and Maru was second in the field. And if Maru is second, by default other Zergs will be even further back.
That gap if memory serves was 14% in match win rate. Fourteen. And the set win rate is a big gap as well
i dont think there's ever been a period in SC2 where the number one player has such a gap in numbers to the number 2
Maru isn’t close to a 14% match win rate ahead of his peers, Serral is, ergo I think it’s hard to argue against Serral being a massive outlier
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
The 2nd best Zerg is Reynor or Dark, who have won a World Championship and multiple offline events (DH/Gamers8/GSL). The 2nd best Terran is either Clem or Cure who hasnt even reach the Final or a World Championship, and has won a combine of TWO offline event (1GSL and 1DH). And you think the gap between Serral and the 2nd Zerg is BIGGER than Maru and the 2nd Terran?
He very clearly listed the timeframe he was referring to, which clearly matches up with the last couple of balance patches. It's not his fault you can't read.
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
The 2nd best Zerg is Reynor or Dark, who have won a World Championship and multiple offline events (DH/Gamers8/GSL). The 2nd best Terran is either Clem or Cure who hasnt even reach the Final or a World Championship, and has won a combine of TWO offline event (1GSL and 1DH). And you think the gap between Serral and the 2nd Zerg is BIGGER than Maru and the 2nd Terran?
If you refer to WC you are talking about achievements instead of current level of playing, Clem is the second best Terran at this second but he is not competitive in the GOAT list. Reynor may be arguably the top 10 in the list but he is not matching Clem nor Maru currenlty.
Wouldn't Terran AI wipe the floor with Zerg AI? Them having ranged, mobile units offers so much potential, it might be too hard for humans to get to a level to outscale Zergs with that tho..
I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole.
I don't think you've listened to or read herO. He's not talking about Zerg, he's talking about Serral, on the topic of goat. small difference, not that you're reading too much into it.
The fear/respect of other players is pretty high up on my list of reasons why I have Serral at #1 on my GOAT list (narrowly beating Rogue). I don't think there's been a player in the history of the game who has regularly been talked about with such deference by their peers.
It's funny that the word "aura" has become part of the popular vernacular in the last few month, cause it's a pretty good way to describe that fear factor Serral has.
[Tangent: The Korean community called this "force" when the bonjwa debates were at their peak in the late 2000's. The arguments over how much 'force' Jaedong had compared to his predecessors was worse than any GOAT debate you'll read on TL.net]
[Tangent 2: 'Bonjwa' has been basically a dead/deprecated meme in Korea since like 2010, but it's actually the foreign community who continued to have a weird obsession with it. Read my essay about the rise and fall of the term in Korean fandom .]
On June 23 2024 02:10 Waxangel wrote: The fear/respect of other players is pretty high up on my list of reasons why I have Serral at #1 on my GOAT list (narrowly beating Rogue). I don't think there's been a player in the history of the game who has regularly been talked about with such deference by their peers.
It's funny that the word "aura" is has become part of the popular vernacular in the last few month, cause it's a pretty good way to describe that fear factor Serral has.
[Tangent: The Korean community called this "force" when the bonjwa debates were at their peak in the late 2000's. The arguments over how much 'force' Jaedong had compared to his predecessors was worse than any GOAT debate you'll read on TL.net]
[Tangent 2: 'Bonjwa' has been basically a dead/deprecated meme in Korea since like 2010, but it's actually the foreign community who continued to have a weird obsession with it. Read my essay about the rise and fall of the term in Korean fandom .]
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
Not that you're necessarily disagreeing with me. But who would have better opinions on 'all time' than the Korean pro's that span the Maru timeline and are still active today? Doesn't surprise me that the current Europeans back Serral. When Hero says that everyone thinks Serral is the goat, I'm assuming he means his peers who have spanned multiple eras.
A lot of the time modern sports players say someone from their era (Or the one right before them, that they watched growing up) is the goat, even against the common opinions of past eras. Some people think Kareem is still the GOAT, some Jordan, Kobe got it during his era, LeBron, etc. A current player saying the best peer in his era is the GOAT is not uncommon at all.
On June 23 2024 09:55 radracer wrote: A lot of the time modern sports players say someone from their era (Or the one right before them, that they watched growing up) is the goat, even against the common opinions of past eras. Some people think Kareem is still the GOAT, some Jordan, Kobe got it during his era, LeBron, etc. A current player saying the best peer in his era is the GOAT is not uncommon at all.
it's not uncommon for traditional sports, but in the context of StarCraft, I think Serral has received noticeably more praise/fear from his peers than other great players. Ofc this is purely anecdotal from my end, though I do think I've consumed more interviews/content over the lifespan of SC2 compared to the majority of fans. Not saying this would hold up to some academic media analysis
Seems fair + my memory wouldn't be able to dispute that (lol) Also I don't think there's been a consensus best current player like there has been with Serral lately.
On June 23 2024 09:55 radracer wrote: A lot of the time modern sports players say someone from their era (Or the one right before them, that they watched growing up) is the goat, even against the common opinions of past eras. Some people think Kareem is still the GOAT, some Jordan, Kobe got it during his era, LeBron, etc. A current player saying the best peer in his era is the GOAT is not uncommon at all.
Nah.
A lot of football players hail the ones they saw playing - while growing up - as the best they've ever seen. And not their contemporaries.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
Yup. And that from the ones who were already top players by the great golden shiny rainbow age of 2014-16...
On June 23 2024 09:55 radracer wrote: A lot of the time modern sports players say someone from their era (Or the one right before them, that they watched growing up) is the goat, even against the common opinions of past eras. Some people think Kareem is still the GOAT, some Jordan, Kobe got it during his era, LeBron, etc. A current player saying the best peer in his era is the GOAT is not uncommon at all.
This comment has no relevance to the sc2 GOAT debate though. "Hero's era" spans "Maru's era" AND "Serral's era". Hero won his first premier tournament in 2012. He's a contemporary of both Serral and Maru and has overlapped both of their entire careers. You word this as if Maru and Serral are like Jordan and Kareem. If someone played against Kareem and Jordan for both their entire careers and/or peaks they would have a pretty relevant opinion on which was the GOAT. This is why this debate is so stupid, because the peak of the "Maru era" was in "Serral's era". This isn't Jordan vs Kareem or Wilt. Pele vs Messi or Ronaldo. Brady vs Montana. The timelines overlap.
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
The 2nd best Zerg is Reynor or Dark, who have won a World Championship and multiple offline events (DH/Gamers8/GSL). The 2nd best Terran is either Clem or Cure who hasnt even reach the Final or a World Championship, and has won a combine of TWO offline event (1GSL and 1DH). And you think the gap between Serral and the 2nd Zerg is BIGGER than Maru and the 2nd Terran?
putting Reynor in contention for top 2 zerg when Life Rogue and Dark exist is insane
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
It’s the most overrated stat in StarCraft :p
Although I feel Rogue is somewhat underrated by many to be fair
Aside from Serral who’s putting up genuinely ridiculous numbers, Maru is the highest up there in win rates in meaningful games since 2023 thru now. The gap between Serral and other top Zergs is bigger than Maru and his nearest Terran competition.
If it is a matter that Zerg played perfectly > the other races, perhaps that may be the case but at least in recent enough times it’s only Serral who’s coming close to doing that.
The 2nd best Zerg is Reynor or Dark, who have won a World Championship and multiple offline events (DH/Gamers8/GSL). The 2nd best Terran is either Clem or Cure who hasnt even reach the Final or a World Championship, and has won a combine of TWO offline event (1GSL and 1DH). And you think the gap between Serral and the 2nd Zerg is BIGGER than Maru and the 2nd Terran?
putting Reynor in contention for top 2 zerg when Life Rogue and Dark exist is insane
I assume they meant in the relatively recent past, in which case I would maybe agree with them, Reynor’s current slump aside.
I think Dark’s dropped from being a big title contender in the big ones to the perpetually dangerous, Ro4 mainstay for a wee while now. Of course having said that he’ll no doubt go and win GSL this season.
All-time nah, he just doesn’t quite have the body of work although I think his ceiling when he’s really in form is pretty ridiculous
I would definetly argue Reynor and Rogue battle it out for 2nd best Zerg of all time, with Rogue probably having a slight edge for now. Dark is trailing behind and the other guy isn't really worth mentioning. Three year career and no World Championships eliminates him from contention by a lot.
On June 24 2024 18:16 Balnazza wrote: I would definetly argue Reynor and Rogue battle it out for 2nd best Zerg of all time, with Rogue probably having a slight edge for now. Dark is trailing behind and the other guy isn't really worth mentioning. Three year career and no World Championships eliminates him from contention by a lot.
Nah. Reynor does not have enough of a portfolio to contest. It's not close - Rogue is #2 and clears it. And Dark is still a fair bit ahead of Reynor in overall career achievement IMO. I also think he was, by a fair margin, the most shafted player in Miz's GOAT list. Dude has a solid case for number 6 or so.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. herO should've won against Maru as well and this is at a time where Protoss struggle the most. IMO herO is the 2nd best player atm, but he has a hard time winning against Maru on the current balance. Atm herO is actually the biggest outlier, whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral and many, many Terrans are able to win a single tournament, Oliveira, ByuN, Clem, Gumiho and Maru. Who actually has a shot to win a tournament as a Protoss, there is only herO and this is despite the fact that we have a great pool of Protoss talent, Classic, Stats, Maxpax, Nightmare, Creator, Trap and herO.
As for the interview, when you repeat what was said by the interviewee in another way, you waste time that could've otherwise been more great questions. Your interviews are much needed, thank you so much.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
I'm just gonna let you open Serral's liquipedia page and check how wrong your numbers are for yourself. Here you go, have fun
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral's worst winrate year vs Koreans since 2018 is 70.3% (in 2021). For reference people used to win world championships or multiple GSLs with 65%-66%.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral's worst winrate year vs Koreans since 2018 is 70.3% (in 2021). For reference people used to win world championships or multiple GSLs with 65%-66%.
You have no idea how wrong you are.
Serral dominated the 2nd half of 2018 and from 2022 on, but from 2019 to 2021 he had a small dip in form and wasn't really dominating as Rogue, Reynor, Dark, Trap and Maru were all outperforming Serral for significant amounts of time (not all at the same time, but they had all periods where they were inarguably performing better than Serral).
Doesn't mean Serral was bad as he probably still was a top 3 player at all times which is impressive enough but I guess that's what he was refering to.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
I'm just gonna let you open Serral's liquipedia page and check how wrong your numbers are for yourself. Here you go, have fun
So if i check the results timeline the periods of real dominance have been the 2nd half of 2018 and the recent period since somewhen in 2023 (even tho it hasnt quite been like 2018 ever again). His results are still obviously turbo impressive and consistently great even in the years in between but it wasnt dominance imo.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral's worst winrate year vs Koreans since 2018 is 70.3% (in 2021). For reference people used to win world championships or multiple GSLs with 65%-66%.
You have no idea how wrong you are.
Serral dominated the 2nd half of 2018 and from 2022 on, but from 2019 to 2021 he had a small dip in form and wasn't really dominating as Rogue, Reynor, Dark, Trap and Maru were all outperforming Serral for significant amounts of time (not all at the same time, but they had all periods where they were inarguably performing better than Serral).
Doesn't mean Serral was bad as he probably still was a top 3 player at all times which is impressive enough but I guess that's what he was refering to.
I commend you for your memory, but alas none of us is getting any younger - and quantitative facts are stubborn. Serral was #1 in annual vs Kor winrate in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 (tied with Maru more or less that year) and 2023. Only in 2021 was he #3 indeed with 70.3% in matches, third to Dark's 72.7% and Maru's fantastic 77.9%. This meshes pretty well with 'Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years?' in my view.
This is not inconsistent with Reynor and Rogue having periods of absolute brilliance, and the prizes to prove it, in 2019-2021 as you mentioned, but still being overall less consistent and dominant than Serral.
Since it randomly came to mind for me, some of the top 'auras' in the history of SC2 for retired players. Obv not comprehensive, just some stuff that came to mind.
Nestea: Late 2010 - early 2011 Mvp: 2011 Stephano: Late 2011 - Early 2012 TaeJa: 2013 Life: 2014 INnoVation: 2013, 2015, 2017 (maybe 2014?)
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
I didn't say it's all that matters. But it's pretty relevant "data". One could strongly argue it's the most conclusive data in the debate because how one sided it is.
Here's a quote from your own article- "Yes, there is an obvious flaw in Maru's career resume: the lack of a WCS or IEM world championship". So don't flame me for saying 0 world championships.
But the "data" clearly doesn't justify your rankings. Your list is highly subjective. In your intro you stated "The gold standard - Code S/OSL/SSL aka "Korean Individual Leagues"". Which is entirely your own opinion. Which is fine, I don't agree, but it's your list. But then don't pretend that Hero's opinion's are just his feelings and the data clearly supports your conclusion, because it doesn't.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
I didn't say it's all that matters. But it's pretty relevant "data". One could strongly argue it's the most conclusive data in the debate because how one sided it is.
Here's a quote from your own article- "Yes, there is an obvious flaw in Maru's career resume: the lack of a WCS or IEM world championship". So don't flame me for saying 0 world championships.
But the "data" clearly doesn't justify your rankings. Your list is highly subjective. In your intro you stated "The gold standard - Code S/OSL/SSL aka "Korean Individual Leagues"". Which is entirely your own opinion. Which is fine, I don't agree, but it's your list. But then don't pretend that Hero's opinion's are just his feelings and the data clearly supports your conclusion, because it doesn't.
herO's opinion is fine, yours isn't. Head to head is one of the worst metrics for ranking players because not all matches are created equal and, for players like Mvp and Serral, they never got a chance to play another (alternatively, how does one compare an offline Bo7 between Zest and INnoVation when they were both in their prime from (2013-2015) to one they played a few months before they retired in an online event with a few hundred bucks on the line). Head to head is a useful tool, one that played a part in my evaluation, but it's a part that can only be used in certain situations and the value of its application varies greatly.
I mentioned two types of World Championships. It's your fault if you forget about WESG, not mine if I omit it in that exact circumstances due to sentence structure/mentioning it elsewhere.
"The gold standard" is a phrase used to refer to something of great (or, in many cases, unrivaled) prestige. Code S is 100% the longest running, biggest name value, most prestigious event out there despite the fact that Serral has not participated in it. One can acknowledge that an event with a massive payout is a incredibly important, but Gamers8/ESWC doesn't supplant Code S' place in StarCraft II history just because they hand out more money.
On June 22 2024 00:05 StarcraftHistorian wrote: Hello hello my fellow SC nerds!
This is an extra special one for me, with the legendary herO. Him and I covered his best Proleague memory, thoughts on the GOAT debate, the reason Protoss has been struggling and more! I hope you all enjoy it =D
Thanks for the interview. I love to hear about herO's perspective of protoss matchups these days. But, if possible I would like to have StarcraftHistorian's interview with Rogue. This guy haven't talked much even in interview over the years. I think his last interview was with DPG admin? What was his thoughts? How he evaluate his interactions with Maru and others? Everything about his departure to military service and coming back seemed like in silent mode.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
I didn't say it's all that matters. But it's pretty relevant "data". One could strongly argue it's the most conclusive data in the debate because how one sided it is.
Buster Douglas has a winning record against Mike Tyson.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
I didn't say it's all that matters. But it's pretty relevant "data". One could strongly argue it's the most conclusive data in the debate because how one sided it is.
Here's a quote from your own article- "Yes, there is an obvious flaw in Maru's career resume: the lack of a WCS or IEM world championship". So don't flame me for saying 0 world championships.
But the "data" clearly doesn't justify your rankings. Your list is highly subjective. In your intro you stated "The gold standard - Code S/OSL/SSL aka "Korean Individual Leagues"". Which is entirely your own opinion. Which is fine, I don't agree, but it's your list. But then don't pretend that Hero's opinion's are just his feelings and the data clearly supports your conclusion, because it doesn't.
herO's opinion is fine, yours isn't. Head to head is one of the worst metrics for ranking players because not all matches are created equal and, for players like Mvp and Serral, they never got a chance to play another (alternatively, how does one compare an offline Bo7 between Zest and INnoVation when they were both in their prime from (2013-2015) to one they played a few months before they retired in an online event with a few hundred bucks on the line). Head to head is a useful tool, one that played a part in my evaluation, but it's a part that can only be used in certain situations and the value of its application varies greatly.
I mentioned two types of World Championships. It's your fault if you forget about WESG, not mine if I omit it in that exact circumstances due to sentence structure/mentioning it elsewhere.
"The gold standard" is a phrase used to refer to something of great (or, in many cases, unrivaled) prestige. Code S is 100% the longest running, biggest name value, most prestigious event out there despite the fact that Serral has not participated in it. One can acknowledge that an event with a massive payout is a incredibly important, but Gamers8/ESWC doesn't supplant Code S' place in StarCraft II history just because they hand out more money.
The H2H is soo skewed though, it doesn't matter if half of Maru's losses were hypothetically at ESL cups. He'd still have a losing record and it'd look bad. Maru has a H2H that overall beats everyone, Serral has a H2H that overall beats everyone including Maru. That's when H2H becomes a very telling factor that can't be ignored. It is more significant than a raw statistical winrate vs who knows what. But, being the GOAT and the currently best player are different, so let's look at WESG 2017 instead.
Most people don't consider WESG a world championship. A WC-tier event at the most maybe, depending on the person. It's definitely not the official WC the way that WCS and Katowice have been. But I know you classify it as a WC-tier event in the context of your GOAT articles, so let's look at what you had to say about WESG 2017:
Despite the weak player pools at the WESG tournaments in 2017-18, I considered them to be worth just slightly less than a season of Korean Individual Leagues or an average ESL/Blizzard world championship.
Seems like you think WESG 2017 counts as slightly less than a KIL. So a WESG 2017 win can't fill out Maru's resume the way that a WCS or Katowice would (when officially the WC).
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Thanks Wax for torturing us into the greatest version of ourself at each article.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
On June 25 2024 10:48 Waxangel wrote: Since it randomly came to mind for me, some of the top 'auras' in the history of SC2 for retired players. Obv not comprehensive, just some stuff that came to mind.
Nestea: Late 2010 - early 2011 Mvp: 2011 Stephano: Late 2011 - Early 2012 TaeJa: 2013 Life: 2014 INnoVation: 2013, 2015, 2017 (maybe 2014?)
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral's worst winrate year vs Koreans since 2018 is 70.3% (in 2021). For reference people used to win world championships or multiple GSLs with 65%-66%.
You have no idea how wrong you are.
Serral dominated the 2nd half of 2018 and from 2022 on, but from 2019 to 2021 he had a small dip in form and wasn't really dominating as Rogue, Reynor, Dark, Trap and Maru were all outperforming Serral for significant amounts of time (not all at the same time, but they had all periods where they were inarguably performing better than Serral).
Doesn't mean Serral was bad as he probably still was a top 3 player at all times which is impressive enough but I guess that's what he was refering to.
I commend you for your memory, but alas none of us is getting any younger - and quantitative facts are stubborn. Serral was #1 in annual vs Kor winrate in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 (tied with Maru more or less that year) and 2023. Only in 2021 was he #3 indeed with 70.3% in matches, third to Dark's 72.7% and Maru's fantastic 77.9%. This meshes pretty well with 'Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years?' in my view.
This is not inconsistent with Reynor and Rogue having periods of absolute brilliance, and the prizes to prove it, in 2019-2021 as you mentioned, but still being overall less consistent and dominant than Serral.
I mean it depends on how you define dominance i guess but for me the 2nd half of 2018 was dominance (and somewhat what is Happening currently again) where He basically wins everything He enters. But 2019-2022 wasnt dominance to me.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Are the NBA teams in your example disbanded, and does the production line of new stars from collegiate basketball grind to a halt? That would be roughly equivalent to what happened in SC2 prior to Serral coming to prominence.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral's worst winrate year vs Koreans since 2018 is 70.3% (in 2021). For reference people used to win world championships or multiple GSLs with 65%-66%.
You have no idea how wrong you are.
Serral dominated the 2nd half of 2018 and from 2022 on, but from 2019 to 2021 he had a small dip in form and wasn't really dominating as Rogue, Reynor, Dark, Trap and Maru were all outperforming Serral for significant amounts of time (not all at the same time, but they had all periods where they were inarguably performing better than Serral).
Doesn't mean Serral was bad as he probably still was a top 3 player at all times which is impressive enough but I guess that's what he was refering to.
I commend you for your memory, but alas none of us is getting any younger - and quantitative facts are stubborn. Serral was #1 in annual vs Kor winrate in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 (tied with Maru more or less that year) and 2023. Only in 2021 was he #3 indeed with 70.3% in matches, third to Dark's 72.7% and Maru's fantastic 77.9%. This meshes pretty well with 'Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years?' in my view.
This is not inconsistent with Reynor and Rogue having periods of absolute brilliance, and the prizes to prove it, in 2019-2021 as you mentioned, but still being overall less consistent and dominant than Serral.
I mean it depends on how you define dominance i guess but for me the 2nd half of 2018 was dominance (and somewhat what is Happening currently again) where He basically wins everything He enters. But 2019-2022 wasnt dominance to me.
It does somewhat depend on the activity too.
No golfer ever really has had long stretches where they literally win every event, so what constitutes dominance there isn’t quite set at that high mark. Whereas some squash GOAT candidate won something like 350 matches in a row
I think with Serral we can take individual years as perhaps below the dominance threshold, but as a span of 7 years it’s pretty ridiculous by SC2’s general standards
When’s the last time he didn’t make a Ro8? I actually don’t know and would be interested! I don’t think that points to dominance necessarily, but equally it’s rather impressive
Different eras of course, but at various points in SC2’s history it just didn’t look possible to be quite that relentlessly consistent over such long stretches of time
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Sounds like Maru vs. Serral at Katowice.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Rogue won 3 tournaments in a row and there was a 4th in close proximity. Reynor won 4 tournaments in a 3 month span. Dark won 2 tournaments in a row, a Blizzcon and a supertournament.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
Since 2017 herO is the only Protoss to win a GSL tournament or greater, that's a 7 year span wherein Dark, SoO, Rogue, Solar, Reynor and Serral have all won at least 1 Blizzcon, Katowice or GSL. Edit: Even Scarlett won Pyongchang.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Rogue won 3 tournaments in a row and there was a 4th in close proximity. Reynor won 4 tournaments in a 3 month span. Dark won 2 tournaments in a row, a Blizzcon and a supertournament.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
Since 2017 herO is the only Protoss to win a GSL tournament or greater, that's a 7 year span whereas Dark, SoO, Rogue, Solar, Reynor and Serral have all won at least 1 Blizzcon, Katowice or GSL. Edit: Even Scarlett won Pyongchang.
Scarlett didn't win Pyeonchang. The ling elevator did.
More importantly, Stats won Code S and SSL in 2017 so....................
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Sounds like Maru vs. Serral at Katowice.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Rogue won 3 tournaments in a row and there was a 4th in close proximity. Reynor won 4 tournaments in a 3 month span. Dark won 2 tournaments in a row, a Blizzcon and a supertournament.
On June 25 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote:
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote:
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote:
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
Since 2017 herO is the only Protoss to win a GSL tournament or greater, that's a 7 year span whereas Dark, SoO, Rogue, Solar, Reynor and Serral have all won at least 1 Blizzcon, Katowice or GSL. Edit: Even Scarlett won Pyongchang.
Scarlett didn't win Pyeonchang. The ling elevator did.
More importantly, Stats won Code S and SSL in 2017 so....................
I would give him the lamguage barrier doubt and say He meant since after 2017 (idk If that Statement is true then as Trap won some stuff).
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Sounds like Maru vs. Serral at Katowice.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Rogue won 3 tournaments in a row and there was a 4th in close proximity. Reynor won 4 tournaments in a 3 month span. Dark won 2 tournaments in a row, a Blizzcon and a supertournament.
On June 25 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote:
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote:
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote:
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
Since 2017 herO is the only Protoss to win a GSL tournament or greater, that's a 7 year span whereas Dark, SoO, Rogue, Solar, Reynor and Serral have all won at least 1 Blizzcon, Katowice or GSL. Edit: Even Scarlett won Pyongchang.
Scarlett didn't win Pyeonchang. The ling elevator did.
More importantly, Stats won Code S and SSL in 2017 so....................
I would give him the lamguage barrier doubt and say He meant since after 2017 (idk If that Statement is true then as Trap won some stuff).
I think that Trap "only" won Super Tournaments. I suppose it would depend whether or not you consider those to be "GSL tournament or greater".
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
Serral highly benefits from having to play fewer series though, since DH:EU is so weak / has an easy format for top players, he doesn't have to crawl through open brackets and stuff like other KR players most of the times. It doesn't detract from the fact that he is an exceptionally strong player, but I don't think his sheer winrate vs KR opponents is the most impressive thing about Serral.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Sounds like Maru vs. Serral at Katowice.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Rogue won 3 tournaments in a row and there was a 4th in close proximity. Reynor won 4 tournaments in a 3 month span. Dark won 2 tournaments in a row, a Blizzcon and a supertournament.
On June 25 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote:
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote:
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote:
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
Since 2017 herO is the only Protoss to win a GSL tournament or greater, that's a 7 year span whereas Dark, SoO, Rogue, Solar, Reynor and Serral have all won at least 1 Blizzcon, Katowice or GSL. Edit: Even Scarlett won Pyongchang.
Scarlett didn't win Pyeonchang. The ling elevator did.
More importantly, Stats won Code S and SSL in 2017 so....................
I would give him the lamguage barrier doubt and say He meant since after 2017 (idk If that Statement is true then as Trap won some stuff).
Yes, since after the Stats win in 2017, in what was the before-time, only herO has won what is equivalent to a GSL or higher. Trap won multiple Supertournaments, which is obviously not the same as a GSL, else Serral would've already won 2x GSLs and ppl wouldn't be arguing.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
Serral highly benefits from having to play fewer series though, since DH:EU is so weak / has an easy format for top players, he doesn't have to crawl through open brackets and stuff like other KR players most of the times. It doesn't detract from the fact that he is an exceptionally strong player, but I don't think his sheer winrate vs KR opponents is the most impressive thing about Serral.
I think this works the other way if anything. As Wombat said, when he does play Koreans, he tends to only be playing the best ones or the ones best performing at that time. Thus, you would think his vs KR winrate would be lower, if anything.
To be fair, I don't think there's many *weak* Koreans anymore who are noticably weaker than others, Nightmare being an example of that at least prior to his recent upsurge. There's extremely strong Koreans (Dark/Rogue/Maru/Stats/Trap, non-exhaustive list) and then I feel like by and large most other Koreans are at a vaguely similar level, depending on their individual lows and highs.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
I didn't say it's all that matters. But it's pretty relevant "data". One could strongly argue it's the most conclusive data in the debate because how one sided it is.
Buster Douglas has a winning record against Mike Tyson.
I guess Buster Douglas is the better boxer.
So in this analogy you have Serral being Buster Douglas? Yeah, that's close to being the same thing we're talking about here. Great logic.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral's worst winrate year vs Koreans since 2018 is 70.3% (in 2021). For reference people used to win world championships or multiple GSLs with 65%-66%.
You have no idea how wrong you are.
Serral dominated the 2nd half of 2018 and from 2022 on, but from 2019 to 2021 he had a small dip in form and wasn't really dominating as Rogue, Reynor, Dark, Trap and Maru were all outperforming Serral for significant amounts of time (not all at the same time, but they had all periods where they were inarguably performing better than Serral).
Doesn't mean Serral was bad as he probably still was a top 3 player at all times which is impressive enough but I guess that's what he was refering to.
I commend you for your memory, but alas none of us is getting any younger - and quantitative facts are stubborn. Serral was #1 in annual vs Kor winrate in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 (tied with Maru more or less that year) and 2023. Only in 2021 was he #3 indeed with 70.3% in matches, third to Dark's 72.7% and Maru's fantastic 77.9%. This meshes pretty well with 'Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years?' in my view.
This is not inconsistent with Reynor and Rogue having periods of absolute brilliance, and the prizes to prove it, in 2019-2021 as you mentioned, but still being overall less consistent and dominant than Serral.
Maru and Dark play weaker Korean opponents in general, Aligulac is a better metric, and Serral has been #1 consistently only briefly dropping to #2 at times.
Also comparing the #1 T/Z/P to the #2 T/Z/P to establish how OP a race is, is very very silly, TY was basically Maru's peer until he quit, you probably want to go for something like the median top10 rating for that race.
People will focus on whatever noise they like to satisfy their raging bias.
My main point was this: You don’t get to sluff off Hero’s opinion as just his feelings and say your’s is objective as possible because it is data driven as if you’ve crunched all the statistics into a calculator and proved Maru is number one. Everyone is debating who is the GOAT. Not this guy should be at #7 vs that guy at #5. It’s Maru vs Serral. Either you’re the GOAT or you’re not. If your exercise was truly data driven it would have looked more like the scientific method and a retrospective study and focused on eliminating bias that can sway results. In a retrospective study you are trying to compare two things as similar as possible while eliminating subjective variables that can introduce bias while measuring outcomes. Examples of shared measurable outcomes would be things like head to head record, record against common opponents, records in the same time periods, outcomes of tournaments that they both were playing in. Stuff like that. Your argument boils down to Maru’s accomplishments are superior because some of his achievements happened at certain times that you deem more significant and you consider certain tournaments more prestigious than others. It’s fine to take this path. But it’s just an opinion, just like Hero’s. Not claiming to be a statistician, but this is entry level university science and statistics. It’s been a long time since I was there so someone can probably explain it better. But what you did was not what you think you did.
And unfortunately for you, you don’t get to decide who’s opinion counts or not in a debate like this.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral's worst winrate year vs Koreans since 2018 is 70.3% (in 2021). For reference people used to win world championships or multiple GSLs with 65%-66%.
You have no idea how wrong you are.
Serral dominated the 2nd half of 2018 and from 2022 on, but from 2019 to 2021 he had a small dip in form and wasn't really dominating as Rogue, Reynor, Dark, Trap and Maru were all outperforming Serral for significant amounts of time (not all at the same time, but they had all periods where they were inarguably performing better than Serral).
Doesn't mean Serral was bad as he probably still was a top 3 player at all times which is impressive enough but I guess that's what he was refering to.
I commend you for your memory, but alas none of us is getting any younger - and quantitative facts are stubborn. Serral was #1 in annual vs Kor winrate in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 (tied with Maru more or less that year) and 2023. Only in 2021 was he #3 indeed with 70.3% in matches, third to Dark's 72.7% and Maru's fantastic 77.9%. This meshes pretty well with 'Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years?' in my view.
This is not inconsistent with Reynor and Rogue having periods of absolute brilliance, and the prizes to prove it, in 2019-2021 as you mentioned, but still being overall less consistent and dominant than Serral.
Well, I disagree with vs kor winrate being the only relevant metric, especially considering the two players Serral struggled the most with are foreigners - but I coincede we're splitting hairs at this point. People also say Mvp dominated WoL without meaning he dominated every single year
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
To be fair to Mizen, GSL was the most prestigious tournament for the first few years of sc2 existence. However that is no longer the case for close to almost a decade now. Also Maru only started to win the GSL when it lost its meaning already. I know people will dispute this point to boost Maru but that’s the truth. Maru can barely win anything outside of Korea.
Being a big fish in a small pond does not = goat contender
The only tournaments people care about or the hardest tournaments to win are the ones Serral are attending. Everything else just pretty much or feels like a tier B tournament.
Also I believe most people couldn’t care less what anyone’s result were in the pro league. It’s already proven it was a fix league so any result is automatically voided
I’m sure Mizen did lots of research into his data but stats/data are flawed and bias. It’s like people saying Lebron is a goat contender because of his “stats”, when the general consensus was will and always will be Jordan.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
To be fair to Mizen, GSL was the most prestigious tournament for the first few years of sc2 existence. However that is no longer the case for close to almost a decade now. Also Maru only started to win the GSL when it lost its meaning already. I know people will dispute this point to boost Maru but that’s the truth. Maru can barely win anything outside of Korea.
Being a big fish in a small pond does not = goat contender
The only tournaments people care about or the hardest tournaments to win are the ones Serral are attending. Everything else just pretty much or feels like a tier B tournament.
Also I believe most people couldn’t care less what anyone’s result were in the pro league. It’s already proven it was a fix league so any result is automatically voided
I’m sure Mizen did lots of research into his data but stats/data are flawed and bias. It’s like people saying Lebron is a goat contender because of his “stats”, when the general consensus was will and always will be Jordan.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
To be fair to Mizen, GSL was the most prestigious tournament for the first few years of sc2 existence. However that is no longer the case for close to almost a decade now. Also Maru only started to win the GSL when it lost its meaning already. I know people will dispute this point to boost Maru but that’s the truth. Maru can barely win anything outside of Korea.
Being a big fish in a small pond does not = goat contender
The only tournaments people care about or the hardest tournaments to win are the ones Serral are attending. Everything else just pretty much or feels like a tier B tournament.
Also I believe most people couldn’t care less what anyone’s result were in the pro league. It’s already proven it was a fix league so any result is automatically voided
I’m sure Mizen did lots of research into his data but stats/data are flawed and bias. It’s like people saying Lebron is a goat contender because of his “stats”, when the general consensus was will and always will be Jordan.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
It is unbelievably intellectually dishonest to compare WESG to a Blizzcon or Katowice. There’s a reason the community unanimously states that Maru is lacking a world championship caliber win. Perhaps we should examine whose opinions are worth reading.
[QUOTE]On June 26 2024 02:10 Cactus66 wrote: [QUOTE]On June 25 2024 07:28 Mizenhauer wrote:
My main point was this: You don’t get to sluff off Hero’s opinion as just his feelings and say your’s is objective as possible because it is data driven as if you’ve crunched all the statistics into a calculator and proved Maru is number one. Everyone is debating who is the GOAT. Not this guy should be at #7 vs that guy at #5. It’s Maru vs Serral. Either you’re the GOAT or you’re not. If your exercise was truly data driven it would have looked more like the scientific method and a retrospective study and focused on eliminating bias that can sway results. In a retrospective study you are trying to compare two things as similar as possible while eliminating subjective variables that can introduce bias while measuring outcomes. Examples of shared measurable outcomes would be things like head to head record, record against common opponents, records in the same time periods, outcomes of tournaments that they both were playing in. Stuff like that. Your argument boils down to Maru’s accomplishments are superior because some of his achievements happened at certain times that you deem more significant and you consider certain tournaments more prestigious than others. It’s fine to take this path. But it’s just an opinion, just like Hero’s. Not claiming to be a statistician, but this is entry level university science and statistics. It’s been a long time since I was there so someone can probably explain it better. But what you did was not what you think you did.
And unfortunately for you, you don’t get to decide who’s opinion counts or not in a debate like this.
[/QUOTE]
Your university entry level science and stats would also tell you would need to account for all material periods, not just those that benefit the guy you want on top. Serral began winning in 2018 whereas maru was doing that since 2013. If you're trying to figure out who is the best of all time, you have to account for maru's whole trajectory, period.
Pretty sure your premise is wrong fyi. This is not a maru v. serral debate. This is a who among the population is the best of them all. That maru and serral are the last two standing is immaterial for the premise. You would account for every result each competing player individually had, then start assigning weights, and only at the end would you compare the players against each other. Your method flips the script by doing a maru v. serral debate off the top. Regardless of the method you still need to account for everyone's results, but your premise opens you up (as it happened here) to start excluding results that should not be excluded.
On June 25 2024 07:28 Mizenhauer wrote: I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
You might try using one in your next GOAT list
Edited to add: Holy shit just caught up on reading and you're actually trying to count WESG 2017 for Maru as almost equivalent to a GSL or Kato/Blizz tier event. You do realize it only had 3 koreans in it right? That Maru only played foreigners and Dark? No one counts that for a reason Miz, and it really shows your bias that you're trying to give it clout for, what? Its prize pool? Haven't you been saying for the last 6 months that prizepools aren't what matters? Guess they only 'count' when you want them to. So much for data driven.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
Come on guys, if we are going to say who is capable of playing a race almost perfectly and consistently, it is undoubtedly Serral.
but to say that Serral achieves what Zerg achieves because it is easier to maintain the level of consistency.... the question is based on what do you think that Zerg is easy to maintain the consistency...... because Serral is the only one Zerg player showing that level of consistency. just because 1 person does it doesn't mean everyone can...
Let's say things as they are. if Serral did not exist. MARU(yes a TERRAN PLAYER) would be dominating the scene and probably any tournament it participates in.
and for those who watched the last 8 games between MARU-SERRAL... you can see that it is not a balance problem.........
MARU would be No. 1 if Serral did not exist.....but the reality is different... there is no need to look for excuses or other readings of balance.... when there are none.
On June 22 2024 00:35 Poopi wrote: Thanks for the interview! I am not very surprised by the goat part, when zerg is played perfectly, there is no hole. You can't do this with terran though and/or it's usually harder to maintain that level of perfection with that race, depending on patches / maps. I still think Rogue is underestimated by the community, it takes some INSANE talent to punch above his "theoretical" weight in so many offline bo7. Sure, he used broken things to his advantage, but he beat so many players that were better "on paper" that it's mindblowing to me
Come on guys, if we are going to say who is capable of playing a race almost perfectly and consistently, it is undoubtedly Serral.
but to say that Serral achieves what Zerg achieves because it is easier to maintain the level of consistency.... the question is based on what do you think that Zerg is easy to maintain the consistency...... because Serral is the only one Zerg player showing that level of consistency. just because 1 person does it doesn't mean everyone can...
Let's say things as they are. if Serral did not exist. MARU(yes a TERRAN PLAYER) would be dominating the scene and probably any tournament it participates in.
and for those who watched the last 8 games between MARU-SERRAL... you can see that it is not a balance problem.........
MARU would be No. 1 if Serral did not exist.....but the reality is different... there is no need to look for excuses or other readings of balance.... when there are none.
Maru would be no. 1 because he already is but by the criteria Serral fans use to make Serral no. 1 (overweighting globals and under weighting Korean leagues) Rogue would be no. 1 if Serral wasn't around. Especially because Rogue lost to Serral twice in world championships. He's the heavy favorite in the Blizzcon 18 finals and is 50-50 in the Kato 22 finals with no Serral around.
Also whether or not current Maru vs Serral results has anything to do with balance (I agree their last few match results don't have much to do with balance) doesn't impact whether the game was imbalanced in the past.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
It is unbelievably intellectually dishonest to compare WESG to a Blizzcon or Katowice. There’s a reason the community unanimously states that Maru is lacking a world championship caliber win. Perhaps we should examine whose opinions are worth reading.
Perhaps we should examine whose Videos are Worth watching. For real do you even realize how disrespectful you are right now for an opinion article. Also the snarkyness of some people in Here is really Something Just because you disagree.
Your university entry level science and stats would also tell you would need to account for all material periods, not just those that benefit the guy you want on top. Serral began winning in 2018 whereas maru was doing that since 2013. If you're trying to figure out who is the best of all time, you have to account for maru's whole trajectory, period.
Pretty sure your premise is wrong fyi. This is not a maru v. serral debate. This is a who among the population is the best of them all. That maru and serral are the last two standing is immaterial for the premise. You would account for every result each competing player individually had, then start assigning weights, and only at the end would you compare the players against each other. Your method flips the script by doing a maru v. serral debate off the top. Regardless of the method you still need to account for everyone's results, but your premise opens you up (as it happened here) to start excluding results that should not be excluded.[/QUOTE]
I agree with parts of what you're saying. But there is no assigning weights subjectively by how you perceive prestige. I attempted to give a disclaimer that others could explain this better.
I stated it first, because I wanted to make my point clear, but I'll restate it again. This whole list was Miz's opinion (which is fine, he's entitled to his opinion even though he doesn't think I'm entitled to mine).. He doesn't get to disregard Hero's opinion and say his own is more important.
His argument comes down to X period of time was more important than Y period of time and ABC tournament was more important to XYZ not based on who participated in them, but by their history. Those are not data driven conclusions.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
It is unbelievably intellectually dishonest to compare WESG to a Blizzcon or Katowice. There’s a reason the community unanimously states that Maru is lacking a world championship caliber win. Perhaps we should examine whose opinions are worth reading.
Perhaps we should examine whose Videos are Worth watching. For real do you even realize how disrespectful you are right now for an opinion article. Also the snarkyness of some people in Here is really Something Just because you disagree.
It's worth noting that the main event of WESG could never be confused with IEM Katowice, but the qualifiers compare reasonably to the 8/8 split era of the WCS World Championships (2016 onwards). Maru had to beat sOs, Solar and Dark in the qualifiers, all three of which had made the finals of either SSL or Code S since the launch of LotV-with the latter two appearing more than once (he also beat Dark in the main event. Compare that to Serral's win at WCS 2018, where he had to beat sOs, Dark, Rogue and Stats to win, and it doesn't look bad on paper. The circumstances are obviously different, but every pro in Korea (and across the world) played in those qualifiers and I can assure you with all the money on the line. Serral's run was way more impressive, but you can't get a holistic view of WESG without looking at the qualifiers.
I've said numerous times that I don't have a side in this argument. Maru and Serral have pretty much locked up the top 2 spots all time at this point and there are reasonably cases for either being first/second. I am a stickler for using the correct terminology, however, and if someone says he never won a "World Championship", he certainly did since the name of the event "World Electronic Sports games" is meant to evoke that "World Championship". It's also listed as a premier event in liquipedia so, while the event is obviously not a 1 to 1 comparison to IEM or WCS (mind you there are some years where the format of those events made them far easier to win than in other years) it has a prize pool and name worthy of a second tier WC.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
It is unbelievably intellectually dishonest to compare WESG to a Blizzcon or Katowice. There’s a reason the community unanimously states that Maru is lacking a world championship caliber win. Perhaps we should examine whose opinions are worth reading.
Perhaps we should examine whose Videos are Worth watching. For real do you even realize how disrespectful you are right now for an opinion article. Also the snarkyness of some people in Here is really Something Just because you disagree.
It’s ALMOST as if I threw the same words that were used back at them. Who decided anyone in this thread was the arbiter of whose opinions are worth something?
If you don’t want to watch my videos, then I guess you shouldn’t.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
It is unbelievably intellectually dishonest to compare WESG to a Blizzcon or Katowice. There’s a reason the community unanimously states that Maru is lacking a world championship caliber win. Perhaps we should examine whose opinions are worth reading.
Perhaps we should examine whose Videos are Worth watching. For real do you even realize how disrespectful you are right now for an opinion article. Also the snarkyness of some people in Here is really Something Just because you disagree.
It's worth noting that the main event of WESG could never be confused with IEM Katowice, but the qualifiers compare reasonably to the 8/8 split era of the WCS World Championships (2016 onwards). Maru had to beat sOs, Solar and Dark in the qualifiers, all three of which had made the finals of either SSL or Code S since the launch of LotV-with the latter two appearing more than once (he also beat Dark in the main event. Compare that to Serral's win at WCS 2018, where he had to beat sOs, Dark, Rogue and Stats to win, and it doesn't look bad on paper. The circumstances are obviously different, but every pro in Korea (and across the world) played in those qualifiers and I can assure you with all the money on the line. Serral's run was way more impressive, but you can't get a holistic view of WESG without looking at the qualifiers.
I've said numerous times that I don't have a side in this argument. Maru and Serral have pretty much locked up the top 2 spots all time at this point and there are reasonably cases for either being first/second. I am a stickler for using the correct terminology, however, and if someone says he never won a "World Championship", he certainly did since the name of the event "World Electronic Sports games" is meant to evoke that "World Championship". It's also listed as a premier event in liquipedia so, while the event is obviously not a 1 to 1 comparison to IEM or WCS (mind you there are some years where the format of those events made them far easier to win than in other years) it has a prize pool and name worthy of a second tier WC.
It's not a world championship, simply because it was never officially a world championship. Blizzard didn't label it a WC the way WCS is (or Katowice, since Blizzard was working directly with ESL and at a point officially announced they were passing things over to ESL to continue the scene, so by extension if ESL labels it a WC then it is the official WC).
If there was a WCG in 2024 with SC2, then would you call that a WC because it has "world" in its title? Or the Global Starcraft 2 League since it has Global in its name? What about a small tournament that decides to use "world championship" in its name, of course not right? It would be one thing to call WESG a world championship in the casual sense of the term. But it would be intellectually dishonest, in the context that you tried to argue that Maru did have a WC when we all know that the hole in Maru's resume is that he specifically lacks a WCS/Katowice (when they are officially a WC).
A WC-tier event, sure, a description you've defined in your articles and have used often, but not an official world championship.
Otherwise, we could call the Katowice that Serral just won a WC (or Reynor's Gamers8 win) just because it was the finale of a circuit that involves qualifiers from across the world (world championship) just like WESG. But it's not because it's not the official WC this year.
I know you often say that people's opinions can go to Serral or Maru being the GOAT and you think either are valid. But at the same time, you dismiss people's opinions in a disrespectful manner when they say Serral is the GOAT, as you did with herO in this thread (though that was fine and inoffensive to me, there was no particularly condescending language), and many posters in many threads, often citing reasons such as people don't have the same data as you have, or that they're committing revisionist history, as if your way of interpreting data is more correct than others. It doesn't line up.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
It is unbelievably intellectually dishonest to compare WESG to a Blizzcon or Katowice. There’s a reason the community unanimously states that Maru is lacking a world championship caliber win. Perhaps we should examine whose opinions are worth reading.
Perhaps we should examine whose Videos are Worth watching. For real do you even realize how disrespectful you are right now for an opinion article. Also the snarkyness of some people in Here is really Something Just because you disagree.
I don't stand for snarkiness and toxicity, but you're pointing at the wrong person. Miz fires shots all the time and brings the snark to a maximum when it comes to responding to people sharing their opinions, even when those opinions aren't made in response to his articles or his posts. This as well as the overly authoritative tone/language in the articles and his posts in other threads has resulted in discourse about GOATs to be more heated than it needs to be and is just inviting others to feel uncomfortable. It would indeed be nice however if everyone turned the snark down and just remembered that we all post here because we love the same thing.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
Counting WESG as a WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP is insane
Come on dude, they called it a World Championship so obviously it is.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
It is unbelievably intellectually dishonest to compare WESG to a Blizzcon or Katowice. There’s a reason the community unanimously states that Maru is lacking a world championship caliber win. Perhaps we should examine whose opinions are worth reading.
Perhaps we should examine whose Videos are Worth watching. For real do you even realize how disrespectful you are right now for an opinion article. Also the snarkyness of some people in Here is really Something Just because you disagree.
It's worth noting that the main event of WESG could never be confused with IEM Katowice, but the qualifiers compare reasonably to the 8/8 split era of the WCS World Championships (2016 onwards). Maru had to beat sOs, Solar and Dark in the qualifiers, all three of which had made the finals of either SSL or Code S since the launch of LotV-with the latter two appearing more than once (he also beat Dark in the main event. Compare that to Serral's win at WCS 2018, where he had to beat sOs, Dark, Rogue and Stats to win, and it doesn't look bad on paper. The circumstances are obviously different, but every pro in Korea (and across the world) played in those qualifiers and I can assure you with all the money on the line. Serral's run was way more impressive, but you can't get a holistic view of WESG without looking at the qualifiers.
I've said numerous times that I don't have a side in this argument. Maru and Serral have pretty much locked up the top 2 spots all time at this point and there are reasonably cases for either being first/second. I am a stickler for using the correct terminology, however, and if someone says he never won a "World Championship", he certainly did since the name of the event "World Electronic Sports games" is meant to evoke that "World Championship". It's also listed as a premier event in liquipedia so, while the event is obviously not a 1 to 1 comparison to IEM or WCS (mind you there are some years where the format of those events made them far easier to win than in other years) it has a prize pool and name worthy of a second tier WC.
You mean best of 1 qualifier in the first round and best of 3 in the second round? When he came to Asia-pacific qualifier stage he lost 0-3 to Classic and 2-3 to Oliveira and went to main event as the 4th place, do you think this is a great performance?
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
Counting WESG as a WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP is insane
Come on dude, they called it a World Championship so obviously it is.
On June 23 2024 09:55 radracer wrote: A lot of the time modern sports players say someone from their era (Or the one right before them, that they watched growing up) is the goat, even against the common opinions of past eras. Some people think Kareem is still the GOAT, some Jordan, Kobe got it during his era, LeBron, etc. A current player saying the best peer in his era is the GOAT is not uncommon at all.
Imagine Serral and Maru retire today, do you think the players like herO will call Clem as goat?
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
I actually don't think WCS and region-locking helped 'grow' players that much. SC2's tournament infrastructure is a pretty high-efficiency meritocracy, and players rise to their appropriate level of competition almost instantly (ironically, early WoL GSL had a horrendous gating system that delayed the rise of talent).
Serral, Clem, and Reynor achieved very little tournament success when they were part-timers/students in the region-lock WCS system, so they weren't playing for money or career. They were just hobbyists having fun competing; there was no need to 'protect' them from Koreans. Once they actually DID decide to go full-time, they rapidly became championship-level players because they had the foundational talent.
Unless Clem, Reynor, or Serral explicitly say their parents would never have let them give full-time SC2 a try without region-locked WCS, I'm very much inclined to believe that region-lock had little effect on their success.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
It is unbelievably intellectually dishonest to compare WESG to a Blizzcon or Katowice. There’s a reason the community unanimously states that Maru is lacking a world championship caliber win. Perhaps we should examine whose opinions are worth reading.
Perhaps we should examine whose Videos are Worth watching. For real do you even realize how disrespectful you are right now for an opinion article. Also the snarkyness of some people in Here is really Something Just because you disagree.
It’s ALMOST as if I threw the same words that were used back at them. Who decided anyone in this thread was the arbiter of whose opinions are worth something?
If you don’t want to watch my videos, then I guess you shouldn’t.
You are almost there with getting the Point, soon you'll get it.
I know it's not necessary, but I do apologize to those I'm arguing with just for the sake of arguing. I'm in the midst of a manic episode and it's definitely spilled into the discussion. It's good that there is room for conversation on these topics and it was good to see an interview with herO. I recognize I'm not contributing in any positive way so I'll step back for a bit.
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote: [quote] At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
I actually don't think WCS and region-locking helped 'grow' players that much. SC2's tournament infrastructure is a pretty high-efficiency meritocracy, and players rise to their appropriate level of competition almost instantly (ironically, early WoL GSL had a horrendous gating system that delayed the rise of talent).
Serral, Clem, and Reynor achieved very little tournament success when they were part-timers/students in the region-lock WCS system, so they weren't playing for money or career. They were just hobbyists having fun competing; there was no need to 'protect' them from Koreans. Once they actually DID decide to go full-time, they almost instantly became championship-level players because they had talent, and talented players rise to their appropriate level quickly in SC2.
Unless Clem, Reynor, or Serral explicitly say their parents would never have let them give full-time SC2 a try without region-locked WCS, I'm very much inclined to believe that region-lock had little effect on their success.
Well they couldn’t compete right when they hit 16 with German labour laws, at least in the mainline tournaments, they’d still played quite a lot as semi-pros prior, and even then it was only really Serral who broke into a championship calibre player in international events right off the bat.
If we’re including time as a gifted amateur, popping up at the odd LAN etc it still took a good 3-4 years for these ones to get to their rough level they are now. Which aside from the flux of WoL launching, and the initial Kespa move isn’t really atypical for how long it takes a player to get to an international championship/GSL level.
As someone else had mentioned, these three are also the first real breakouts who’d been playing SC2 from a very early age, as their main game and not transferred from a BW, or an RTS like WC3 like a decent chunk of the prior foreign scene. So I think raw ability is also a big part of it, I think only Stephano really had that secret sauce, although I don’t think he’s as mechanically gifted. So yeah the talent absolutely helps and I wouldn’t discount that.
You’re seeing the exact issue foreigners used to have in certain periods, only in the Korean scene today. There isn’t enough prize money as it is, it’s split between players of too high a level to punch through, and you don’t have a team house system to learn your trade and get up to the requisite levels.
Which is a damn shame, but I still think some form of region lock (I’d prefer a soft one) absolutely did help develop the foreign scene a hell of a lot.
On June 26 2024 10:38 Mizenhauer wrote: I know it's not necessary, but I do apologize to those I'm arguing with just for the sake of arguing. I'm in the midst of a manic episode and it's definitely spilled into the discussion. It's good that there is room for conversation on these topics and it was good to see an interview with herO. I recognize I'm not contributing in any positive way so I'll step back for a bit.
Been there got that t-shirt, hope you’re feeling better soon man
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
I will apologize to Mizenhauer for some snark. I obviously disagree with your conclusion, but I think you creating the list was a beneficial project for the community as it sparked lots of debate and interest. I was never denying that you have a strong historical knowledge of the game and scene that I do not have.
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote: [quote] At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote: [quote] At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
It really doesn’t help when Saudi Arabia ESL are ploughing a million dollars into a mega-tournament in a scene with these clear structural issues.
Personally let’s see I’ve got a magic wand, but this magic wand has its limits so I can’t say, prevent Kespa pulling out.
I think you make good points, especially with WCS points and how they work regionally. Never been a big fan of that especially but it’s even more pronounced when WC tier events have kept big prize pools, but others have shrunk.
- I’d cut the non-Korean prize pools a bit, plough that money into Korean tournaments. Be it extra GSLs per year, or some other banner. - Have a truly coordinated calendar, properly synced up so you don’t end up with the occasional clashes - I’d split WCS points into two separate categories. Internal regional classification, and an international standings one. I’d cut some spots awarded for events from the former and give to the latter. The rationale here is to cut a bit of region farming and reward folks who actually show up and can make deep runs at events with an open, high-quality field - As per the above, one would only earn those international points at things like international weekenders, WCS season finals and the likes. - Return to 2 WC tier events that are different in composition and what they’re meant to do. Where Blizzcon was basically always a smattering of top Koreans and a shot for people rewarded for regional performance, and Katowice was your best of the best, who’s hot and more open qualification.
Just spitballing nonsense really, hopefully there’s the genesis of a thought in there somewhere!
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote: [quote] I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 26 2024 08:13 WombaT wrote:
On June 26 2024 06:53 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 19:00 WombaT wrote:
On June 25 2024 13:54 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 06:27 Blitzball04 wrote:
On June 24 2024 22:02 lokol4890 wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote:
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote: [quote] I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
It really doesn’t help when Saudi Arabia ESL are ploughing a million dollars into a mega-tournament in a scene with these clear structural issues.
Personally let’s see I’ve got a magic wand, but this magic wand has its limits so I can’t say, prevent Kespa pulling out.
I think you make good points, especially with WCS points and how they work regionally. Never been a big fan of that especially but it’s even more pronounced when WC tier events have kept big prize pools, but others have shrunk.
- I’d cut the non-Korean prize pools a bit, plough that money into Korean tournaments. Be it extra GSLs per year, or some other banner. - Have a truly coordinated calendar, properly synced up so you don’t end up with the occasional clashes - I’d split WCS points into two separate categories. Internal regional classification, and an international standings one. I’d cut some spots awarded for events from the former and give to the latter. The rationale here is to cut a bit of region farming and reward folks who actually show up and can make deep runs at events with an open, high-quality field - As per the above, one would only earn those international points at things like international weekenders, WCS season finals and the likes. - Return to 2 WC tier events that are different in composition and what they’re meant to do. Where Blizzcon was basically always a smattering of top Koreans and a shot for people rewarded for regional performance, and Katowice was your best of the best, who’s hot and more open qualification.
Just spitballing nonsense really, hopefully there’s the genesis of a thought in there somewhere!
Oh you're on point with a lot of this at least somewhat, which is why I wasn't going to go into it really, but the entire esports competitive twitch TO scene just has so many twists and turns to it. Yup you had ESL getting bought out. But you also had Riot and Valve in total control of the esports scene of some of their games making BANK. So Blizzard got jelly and thought they could do the same thing. They then cut out solid TO's who were able to put on amazing events and bascially cost 1000's of people their jobs, but made an inferior product IMO. This btw isn't limited to just SC2, but OWL and they even messed with WC and WoW at times as well sticking their greedy fingers in the pot. But meanwhile ESL and IEM and Dreamhack and MLG and I'm sure plenty of others were doing great work before Blizzard even had the thought to siphon money off their efforts until they could no longer afford to exist. Not only that, but Blizzard now owned by activision charging millions for franchise slots to rig a system and somewhat limit access was crazy too. Sure there is a challenger style league below that can make an attempt, but the barrier is massive, and the league teams with all that money are quite dominating.
I like the idea of money into GSL events, but honestly a dual run event like the old day or serious proleague addition would be cool too. Because then you're giving teams incentive to exist and you're brining a bit more structure into the scene. Maybe it doesn't work anymore, but something like that COULD have been cool. I only say it might not work anymore becuase what incentive do the best SC2 players have in joining a team a lot of the time now considering the money they're making and how much they're making while streaming. Who knows though maybe they'd like the challenge and the team paycheck.
10000% agree on the calendar. I would also note that any long event should either give way to a weekend event or not clash in some way, also that two longer term events should not run simultaneously. I would also have liked some sort of localized smaller and/or consistent event structure all over. WCS EU was too big for the talent it had. But if there were good weekend, maybe online events or smaller localized events you'd still have something for the up and coming players to grind at. Serral MIGHT waste a weekend driving to an event in his home country to win 10k max or 5kmax, but most likely he wouldn't especially if there was an online cup for 5k or whatever. So these smaller events would still give a ton of possibilities to those who want to go semi-pro or pro.
I think your ideas were fairly based to be honest. But the biggest issue remaining is that it still seems like Blizzard is in charge, and IMO they failed esports in too many ways, they have no business in it. Though they'll never leave either and the damage is done honestly. Hell I even forgot about NASL who popped up, had some great content, but was forced out eventually IIRC.
They also should be held accountable/responsible for rebuilding BW's scene because they in part destroyed it. Not that it might not have somewhat been less, but it was still going strong. Again won't happen, but would be nice.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Sounds like Maru vs. Serral at Katowice.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Rogue won 3 tournaments in a row and there was a 4th in close proximity. Reynor won 4 tournaments in a 3 month span. Dark won 2 tournaments in a row, a Blizzcon and a supertournament.
On June 25 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote:
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote:
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote:
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
Since 2017 herO is the only Protoss to win a GSL tournament or greater, that's a 7 year span whereas Dark, SoO, Rogue, Solar, Reynor and Serral have all won at least 1 Blizzcon, Katowice or GSL. Edit: Even Scarlett won Pyongchang.
Scarlett didn't win Pyeonchang. The ling elevator did.
More importantly, Stats won Code S and SSL in 2017 so....................
On June 26 2024 10:38 Mizenhauer wrote: I know it's not necessary, but I do apologize to those I'm arguing with just for the sake of arguing. I'm in the midst of a manic episode and it's definitely spilled into the discussion. It's good that there is room for conversation on these topics and it was good to see an interview with herO. I recognize I'm not contributing in any positive way so I'll step back for a bit.
Sorry to hear that you’re struggling personally. I hope everything gets better soon on that front.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Sounds like Maru vs. Serral at Katowice.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Rogue won 3 tournaments in a row and there was a 4th in close proximity. Reynor won 4 tournaments in a 3 month span. Dark won 2 tournaments in a row, a Blizzcon and a supertournament.
On June 25 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote:
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote:
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote:
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
Since 2017 herO is the only Protoss to win a GSL tournament or greater, that's a 7 year span whereas Dark, SoO, Rogue, Solar, Reynor and Serral have all won at least 1 Blizzcon, Katowice or GSL. Edit: Even Scarlett won Pyongchang.
Scarlett didn't win Pyeonchang. The ling elevator did.
More importantly, Stats won Code S and SSL in 2017 so....................
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 26 2024 08:13 WombaT wrote:
On June 26 2024 06:53 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 19:00 WombaT wrote:
On June 25 2024 13:54 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 06:27 Blitzball04 wrote:
On June 24 2024 22:02 lokol4890 wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote: [quote]
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
It really doesn’t help when Saudi Arabia ESL are ploughing a million dollars into a mega-tournament in a scene with these clear structural issues.
Personally let’s see I’ve got a magic wand, but this magic wand has its limits so I can’t say, prevent Kespa pulling out.
I think you make good points, especially with WCS points and how they work regionally. Never been a big fan of that especially but it’s even more pronounced when WC tier events have kept big prize pools, but others have shrunk.
- I’d cut the non-Korean prize pools a bit, plough that money into Korean tournaments. Be it extra GSLs per year, or some other banner. - Have a truly coordinated calendar, properly synced up so you don’t end up with the occasional clashes - I’d split WCS points into two separate categories. Internal regional classification, and an international standings one. I’d cut some spots awarded for events from the former and give to the latter. The rationale here is to cut a bit of region farming and reward folks who actually show up and can make deep runs at events with an open, high-quality field - As per the above, one would only earn those international points at things like international weekenders, WCS season finals and the likes. - Return to 2 WC tier events that are different in composition and what they’re meant to do. Where Blizzcon was basically always a smattering of top Koreans and a shot for people rewarded for regional performance, and Katowice was your best of the best, who’s hot and more open qualification.
Just spitballing nonsense really, hopefully there’s the genesis of a thought in there somewhere!
Oh you're on point with a lot of this at least somewhat, which is why I wasn't going to go into it really, but the entire esports competitive twitch TO scene just has so many twists and turns to it. Yup you had ESL getting bought out. But you also had Riot and Valve in total control of the esports scene of some of their games making BANK. So Blizzard got jelly and thought they could do the same thing. They then cut out solid TO's who were able to put on amazing events and bascially cost 1000's of people their jobs, but made an inferior product IMO. This btw isn't limited to just SC2, but OWL and they even messed with WC and WoW at times as well sticking their greedy fingers in the pot. But meanwhile ESL and IEM and Dreamhack and MLG and I'm sure plenty of others were doing great work before Blizzard even had the thought to siphon money off their efforts until they could no longer afford to exist. Not only that, but Blizzard now owned by activision charging millions for franchise slots to rig a system and somewhat limit access was crazy too. Sure there is a challenger style league below that can make an attempt, but the barrier is massive, and the league teams with all that money are quite dominating.
I like the idea of money into GSL events, but honestly a dual run event like the old day or serious proleague addition would be cool too. Because then you're giving teams incentive to exist and you're brining a bit more structure into the scene. Maybe it doesn't work anymore, but something like that COULD have been cool. I only say it might not work anymore becuase what incentive do the best SC2 players have in joining a team a lot of the time now considering the money they're making and how much they're making while streaming. Who knows though maybe they'd like the challenge and the team paycheck.
10000% agree on the calendar. I would also note that any long event should either give way to a weekend event or not clash in some way, also that two longer term events should not run simultaneously. I would also have liked some sort of localized smaller and/or consistent event structure all over. WCS EU was too big for the talent it had. But if there were good weekend, maybe online events or smaller localized events you'd still have something for the up and coming players to grind at. Serral MIGHT waste a weekend driving to an event in his home country to win 10k max or 5kmax, but most likely he wouldn't especially if there was an online cup for 5k or whatever. So these smaller events would still give a ton of possibilities to those who want to go semi-pro or pro.
I think your ideas were fairly based to be honest. But the biggest issue remaining is that it still seems like Blizzard is in charge, and IMO they failed esports in too many ways, they have no business in it. Though they'll never leave either and the damage is done honestly. Hell I even forgot about NASL who popped up, had some great content, but was forced out eventually IIRC.
They also should be held accountable/responsible for rebuilding BW's scene because they in part destroyed it. Not that it might not have somewhat been less, but it was still going strong. Again won't happen, but would be nice.
It’s wild to me that it’s basically a game that’s never had an overall structure that’s right, but through its time has had all the constituent parts just never simultaneously.
I think most people want basically 3 things in an eSport, not always equally or indeed all of them, but largely. The best facing off at least semi-regularly, a scene that is easy to follow and understand, and some kind of structure that might help your hometown heroes or at least regional ones develop and be competitive.
It shouldn’t be that hard to get a structure that largely facilitates that. I will partly blame Blizz for this obviously but I don’t think they’re alone in this either. I don’t think ESL have been much better custodians and I highly disagree with many facets of the EWC as well. If memory serves other tournament orgs were crippled as much by bad business decisions as Blizz being particularly culpable there.
I mean there have been plenty of cool events that have a unique flavour that haven’t exactly been helped out much by other orgs. Be it calendars, be it monetarily.
Nationwars and Homestory Cups spring to mind, great events nonetheless!
Agreed on the WCS Europe format at times, too long for a player pool where there’s big gaps. But for me that could have been a very good format for a Korean competition when they had 30+ really bloody good pros. Whereas when there were non-GSL individual leagues often the format was more, not less cutthroat.
I guess across the board there’s been a certain lack of adaptability when it comes to conditions, be it player’s livelihoods and sustainability or how that links into audience tastes.
Be that Blizzard wanting to run things when they should have been facilitators and a link between various orgs and scenes, ESL broadly doing much the same, or Kespa kinda just wanting to wholly transplant how they did BW to a very different game. Nobody’s really been properly able to bring the Chinese scene more into wider visibility, plus some political issues there which was a real pity too.
Hey it’s been a clusterfuck at many a time, but it’s been a great bloody game to follow over the years to be fair, it’s not all doom and gloom! Just feels many a misstep prevented it from being that little bit greater.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Sounds like Maru vs. Serral at Katowice.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Rogue won 3 tournaments in a row and there was a 4th in close proximity. Reynor won 4 tournaments in a 3 month span. Dark won 2 tournaments in a row, a Blizzcon and a supertournament.
On June 25 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote:
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote:
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote:
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
Since 2017 herO is the only Protoss to win a GSL tournament or greater, that's a 7 year span whereas Dark, SoO, Rogue, Solar, Reynor and Serral have all won at least 1 Blizzcon, Katowice or GSL. Edit: Even Scarlett won Pyongchang.
Scarlett didn't win Pyeonchang. The ling elevator did.
More importantly, Stats won Code S and SSL in 2017 so....................
what happened to your data driven approach
I got lost in the sauce. From one shit poster to another I greatly adore our occasional encounters on this website over the years. Nothing but respect on my end.
On June 26 2024 10:38 Mizenhauer wrote: I know it's not necessary, but I do apologize to those I'm arguing with just for the sake of arguing. I'm in the midst of a manic episode and it's definitely spilled into the discussion. It's good that there is room for conversation on these topics and it was good to see an interview with herO. I recognize I'm not contributing in any positive way so I'll step back for a bit.
Take care of yourself and thanks for the work you put in the whole list / articles. Arguing for the sake of arguing might seem pointless, but it shows there are still a lot of people with passion for this old old game, so personally I think it's good.
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote: [quote] At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 23 2024 01:27 WombaT wrote: [quote] At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
I was thinking about answering to all points in detail, but it's just too hot here, I'm sorry. So I will give general answers and hope to cover everything.
"The money Blizzard put into GSL was laughable"
When Blizzard stopped the funding for SC2 at the end of 2022, the Prizepool between GSL seasons dropped from 123K to 52K, essentially being halved. And remember that already includes crowdfunding for GSL from '23 forward. So you *might* want to reconsider the statement that Blizzard wasn't paying anything. Pirzepools for ESL events btw dropped only about 25%. So either ESL put in a lot more money into the game than Afreeca or Blizzard didn't fund ESL as heavy as GSL.
"The Blizzard licensing killed TOs"
I will admit, I wasn't around in the first year or something like that for SC2. Back then I was admin/caster for WC3CL and was a bit anti-SC2 and anti-change. Our league was thinking about putting up a second league for SC2 though right from the get-go and the licensing was already a topic. So I'm almost certain that the fact that Blizzard wanted to run the show to a degree was the plan from release on. Either way, this means Blizzard did not kill any TOs that were already running SC2 competitions - they all operated under that label. That was at the time rather new. Pre-2010, no game developer really invested anything into Esports. It was all about ESL, DreamHack, ESWC, WCG and so on...private companies, usually barely in communication with the developer at all. Today, every big developer controls their Esport. Riot started it together with Blizzard (or Blizzard was even first?), but it is the industry standard by now. Valve for example did a string of decisions recently regarding CS2, for example they decided that partnership-depending tournaments were forbidden from 2025 onwards. And you know what? ESL and BLAST both had to follow and accept that decision. That basically really is like the FIBA saying "no, Franchising is banned now" and the NBA goes "haha, okay boss, will do!". Anyway, back to Blizzard. They wanted to run the show for multiple reasons. And they clearly envisioned SC2 as a global Esports. They didn't look towards BroodWar, which was extremly bad in that regard. They looked towards WC3. And still, at the start, they let it run its course, with multiple tournament organizers doing their things. A lot of them probably vanishing because Esports isn't a particularly suistainable business and the Financial Crisis of 2014. WCS got introduced a good chunk later and remember, the first one was this national into regional into global system that was actually really cool, but not particularly thought-through yet. Only after that developed the WCS-system.
Now, you might think and say the Licensing-Rules were greedy or whatever. Might be. But there is another aspect of it. Grubby recently talked about this in a video, I think it was about "What's good an bad in SC2?". And one thing he said was that Blizzard essentially ended the Wild-West regarding Esports-Events. Please don't quote me on it, but I think Grubby mentioned that he like almost missed like 25% and up to 50% of the prizepool he technically earned in WC3, because TOs wouldn't pay him out. He said "you would just show up to an event an play and simply would not get paid at all". Either because TOs really just scammed the players or because they went bankrupt. ESWC for example had a rule in their player contract that they only had to payout prizemoney in a timespan of two years. And I think ESL also wasn't particularly fast in paying out back in the day. Goody protested that once, I think he mentioned a delay of six to nine month?
With the Licensing and Blizzard taking over, that stopped. Now players would not only get their money, but they would get it in a reasonable timeframe. I'm pretty sure if you ask a player if he or she prefers to either play ten events for ten different TOs or three events for the same but get paid all three events guaranteed...I'm pretty certain there is a clear favorite here.
"Money shouldn't be taken from the top and awarded to lesser regions to such a degree"
You need to if you want a global playing field to entertain a global viewership. You bring up the NBA: You are forgetting something here though. The NBA isn't the only basketball-league in the world. It's of course the largest, most important and financially strongest, zero doubt about that. But there are basketball leagues all around the world, especially in Europe. So if you are an aspiring basketball player in Germany, you don't need to hope to get a scholarship for an american College and then either go into the NBA or stop playing Basketball. You can make a career playing Basketball in Germany. Then maybe in Europe. And eventually, you might get to play in the NBA. In return, lots of americans aren't starved out of Basketball if they don't make it into the NBA, but they can go abroad. Again, in Germany, I know for a fact that every team in the third highest Basketball league, which is basically the first one that plays somewhat professional, each team has usually two or three US-players. Now you might say "aha, so region lock is bad, see!", but there is a region-lock. Teams are only allowed that many non-EU-players. Exactly to help develop own talent and protect the local players.
This excourse is an example of course. But the think is, that Esport doesn't work like that exactly. For one, money isn't as big as it is in Basketball, so you can't particularly lower the money per region over and over before there is no money at all. But SC2, like all Esports, has other differences to regular sport aswell. It is usually less "grassroots" and more top-heavy and internationally oriented. There is no "natural distribution" of money in SC2, the money is were Blizzard puts it (atleast in the past, now there is actual natural distribution, with ESL pumping money into it while the korean scene struggles). And as I said before: The goal wasn't to recreate Proleague and OSL/MSL. The goal was to recreate the global success of WC3, with a global playerbase. And it somewhat worked. We have an international viewership and lots of foreigner players. Which I'm certain we wouldn't have if Blizzards entire plan would have been "here Kespa, take our money and do what you want, the rest of the world will git gud on their own and eventually join Proleague LUL."
"There should be smaller tournaments and also teams can provide the money players need"
There always have been regional, smaller tournaments. Often though they didn't pay out enough money, which makes sense. With the rise of Twitch and the heavy promotion of international tournaments, local TOs struggled to provide a product that could earn money.
And as for teams...well, they simply can't provide said money. Easy as that. There are reasons for that of course. First of all, they did that in the past. In WC3, prizemoney was often incredibly top-heavy. We are talking events with 50+ players and only the Top 3 got any prizemoney (hi ESWC again!). So teams filled in to a heavy degree. But in turn, the teamleagues that existed nearly didn't pay out enough money to fund said teams. We are talking finals that teams had to win to even cover their travelcosts. But Esport was brand new and a lot of sponsors were ready to pump in the money to finance teams like MYM and 4Kings. And then 2008 happened and a lot of companies cut their fundings. And the WC3-moneybubble bursted, with an incredible shutdown of teams.
For SC2, teams and organisations that survived tried to be healthier. But the money they didn't pay anymore needed to come from somewhere and that were tournaments. Proleague of course didn't have any of these problems. For one, being entirely offline and very popular in Korea, I assume Proleague generated quite the revenue. And then all teams were owned by the big korean Groups, who had a PR-based interest to invest. Be it SKT (I was shocked to learn that this does not stand for "South Korean Telecom" btw...anyone else?), the KT Group, Samsung...you get it.
With the focus of SC2 being even more on 1v1 competition, teams had a harder time generating revenue...not that it is easy to generate revenue in Esports anyway. So it would be suicide for the scene to put all the "develop talent"-duties on teams who can't really afford that.
I'm sure I've missed some of your points, but again, this is already taking too long in the heat. So I hope I covered the important things.
I would very much like to have a clue on DRG's, Gumiho's, Byun's view on whos GOAT. Cus they are the ones who have been around in pro scene among the best that long...
We, from the outside, need to make sense from differently quantifyable numbers. I'd like to know what their gut + experience say.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
To be fair to Mizen, GSL was the most prestigious tournament for the first few years of sc2 existence. However that is no longer the case for close to almost a decade now. Also Maru only started to win the GSL when it lost its meaning already. I know people will dispute this point to boost Maru but that’s the truth. Maru can barely win anything outside of Korea.
Being a big fish in a small pond does not = goat contender
The only tournaments people care about or the hardest tournaments to win are the ones Serral are attending. Everything else just pretty much or feels like a tier B tournament.
Also I believe most people couldn’t care less what anyone’s result were in the pro league. It’s already proven it was a fix league so any result is automatically voided
I’m sure Mizen did lots of research into his data but stats/data are flawed and bias. It’s like people saying Lebron is a goat contender because of his “stats”, when the general consensus was will and always will be Jordan.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
To be fair to Mizen, GSL was the most prestigious tournament for the first few years of sc2 existence. However that is no longer the case for close to almost a decade now. Also Maru only started to win the GSL when it lost its meaning already. I know people will dispute this point to boost Maru but that’s the truth. Maru can barely win anything outside of Korea.
Being a big fish in a small pond does not = goat contender
The only tournaments people care about or the hardest tournaments to win are the ones Serral are attending. Everything else just pretty much or feels like a tier B tournament.
Also I believe most people couldn’t care less what anyone’s result were in the pro league. It’s already proven it was a fix league so any result is automatically voided
I’m sure Mizen did lots of research into his data but stats/data are flawed and bias. It’s like people saying Lebron is a goat contender because of his “stats”, when the general consensus was will and always will be Jordan.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
To be fair to Mizen, GSL was the most prestigious tournament for the first few years of sc2 existence. However that is no longer the case for close to almost a decade now. Also Maru only started to win the GSL when it lost its meaning already. I know people will dispute this point to boost Maru but that’s the truth. Maru can barely win anything outside of Korea.
Being a big fish in a small pond does not = goat contender
The only tournaments people care about or the hardest tournaments to win are the ones Serral are attending. Everything else just pretty much or feels like a tier B tournament.
Also I believe most people couldn’t care less what anyone’s result were in the pro league. It’s already proven it was a fix league so any result is automatically voided
I’m sure Mizen did lots of research into his data but stats/data are flawed and bias. It’s like people saying Lebron is a goat contender because of his “stats”, when the general consensus was will and always will be Jordan.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
It's crazy how much any player that takes maps off Serral gets overrated. Oliveira just has a weirdly good matchup vs Serral atm he is still worse than most of the Koreans. Classic has a very favored all time record and even in the last 12 months is 50-50 vs him. Same thing with Shin who actually has a dominant record vs Oliveira even when only looking at 2024 series. Cure is definitely better than Oliveira as well both head to head and vs pretty much every player in the world besides Serral.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
To be fair to Mizen, GSL was the most prestigious tournament for the first few years of sc2 existence. However that is no longer the case for close to almost a decade now. Also Maru only started to win the GSL when it lost its meaning already. I know people will dispute this point to boost Maru but that’s the truth. Maru can barely win anything outside of Korea.
Being a big fish in a small pond does not = goat contender
The only tournaments people care about or the hardest tournaments to win are the ones Serral are attending. Everything else just pretty much or feels like a tier B tournament.
Also I believe most people couldn’t care less what anyone’s result were in the pro league. It’s already proven it was a fix league so any result is automatically voided
I’m sure Mizen did lots of research into his data but stats/data are flawed and bias. It’s like people saying Lebron is a goat contender because of his “stats”, when the general consensus was will and always will be Jordan.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
It's crazy how much any player that takes maps off Serral gets overrated. Oliveira just has a weirdly good matchup vs Serral atm he is still worse than most of the Koreans. Classic has a very favored all time record and even in the last 12 months is 50-50 vs him. Same thing with Shin who actually has a dominant record vs Oliveira even when only looking at 2024 series. Cure is definitely better than Oliveira as well both head to head and vs pretty much every player in the world besides Serral.
He had one good match against Serral, he’s never beaten him in a tournament. Granted Cure isn’t doing much better with like a 2-16 match record.
I mean style does come into matchups too, player a may > player b who owns > player c, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a > c
Personally I think SHIN Rag is pretty underrated for his results over his career, probably down to his style. For whatever reason it’s ruthless strategic genius when Dark does some naughtiness, but cheesing out better players when Rag SHIN does.
Conversely I think Oliveira is a tad overrated, largely off one big tournament run, partly because he does play a thrilling style when he’s on song.
Cure has more Ro4+ performances in premier tournies since 2023 than Oliveira has had in his whole career, I’d have a real hard time placing Cure behind him.
If Maru’s still absolutely the Terran god unless one is a maniac, Cure is the clear next in line if we’re talking consistency and a rounded game if not quite hitting the heights Mary does, and Clem can hit those heights but not as frequently. Oliveira can hit huge heights too but it’s really infrequent
Oliveira won a world championship (by beating Maru in a best of 7 high stakes TvT finals) and is the only person to make Serral bleed in a good while.
Sure he's only like that on his highs, but so was the version of Rogue that got most of a million in prize money. For making a RO4 sure Cure any day. But winning? I think Oli's got the edge in his current form.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
I mean, you just have to compute the odds of Maru's run on aligulac and the odds of Serral on the same website, and it'll become obvious which run was harder.
The list above is also wrong. Serral also won against SHIN to win ESL Spring.
So basically, each Maru and Serral had to beat herO and SHIN, basically eliminating them. "Oh, but GSL is a preeeeeeeep tournament"...yes, and so is ESL Spring because literally everyone is prepping for Serral. Also, wasn't the new argument of the Korean-Force that no one is prepping and training anyway?
so it leaves the question who are stronger...soO/Cure or Nice/Oliveira. And I will say that is a pretty delicious Tie. soO and Nice are basically on the same level now - they *can* win some cool games, but usually, they won't. Cure and Oliveira are both top-level Terrans, but I would give a slight edge to Oli...a SLIGHT edge. Just based on things like Cure losing 2-3 against SHIN, while Oli beat Reynor 3-1 and takes two maps of Serral.
So the paths of Serral and Maru were mostly similiar - right? Nope, because in the end, Serral had to beat Maru, the only other God-Tier player out there at the moment. Maru did not have to win against Serral or anyone else on that level (e.g. a Reynor in super-shape). There is also the fact that GSL has a massive bonus towards the better player and that is Double-Elimination. Can be a factor, though it wasn't in this particular run.
But in the end, these comparisons are usually not helpful. It doesn't matter if Zverev wins against the Top 3 of Tennis in an ATP Masters if he can't win a Grand Slam.
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote: [quote] I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 26 2024 08:13 WombaT wrote:
On June 26 2024 06:53 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 19:00 WombaT wrote:
On June 25 2024 13:54 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 06:27 Blitzball04 wrote:
On June 24 2024 22:02 lokol4890 wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote:
On June 24 2024 19:46 ejozl wrote: [quote] I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
I was thinking about answering to all points in detail, but it's just too hot here, I'm sorry. So I will give general answers and hope to cover everything.
"The money Blizzard put into GSL was laughable"
When Blizzard stopped the funding for SC2 at the end of 2022, the Prizepool between GSL seasons dropped from 123K to 52K, essentially being halved. And remember that already includes crowdfunding for GSL from '23 forward. So you *might* want to reconsider the statement that Blizzard wasn't paying anything. Pirzepools for ESL events btw dropped only about 25%. So either ESL put in a lot more money into the game than Afreeca or Blizzard didn't fund ESL as heavy as GSL.
"The Blizzard licensing killed TOs"
I will admit, I wasn't around in the first year or something like that for SC2. Back then I was admin/caster for WC3CL and was a bit anti-SC2 and anti-change. Our league was thinking about putting up a second league for SC2 though right from the get-go and the licensing was already a topic. So I'm almost certain that the fact that Blizzard wanted to run the show to a degree was the plan from release on. Either way, this means Blizzard did not kill any TOs that were already running SC2 competitions - they all operated under that label. That was at the time rather new. Pre-2010, no game developer really invested anything into Esports. It was all about ESL, DreamHack, ESWC, WCG and so on...private companies, usually barely in communication with the developer at all. Today, every big developer controls their Esport. Riot started it together with Blizzard (or Blizzard was even first?), but it is the industry standard by now. Valve for example did a string of decisions recently regarding CS2, for example they decided that partnership-depending tournaments were forbidden from 2025 onwards. And you know what? ESL and BLAST both had to follow and accept that decision. That basically really is like the FIBA saying "no, Franchising is banned now" and the NBA goes "haha, okay boss, will do!". Anyway, back to Blizzard. They wanted to run the show for multiple reasons. And they clearly envisioned SC2 as a global Esports. They didn't look towards BroodWar, which was extremly bad in that regard. They looked towards WC3. And still, at the start, they let it run its course, with multiple tournament organizers doing their things. A lot of them probably vanishing because Esports isn't a particularly suistainable business and the Financial Crisis of 2014. WCS got introduced a good chunk later and remember, the first one was this national into regional into global system that was actually really cool, but not particularly thought-through yet. Only after that developed the WCS-system.
Now, you might think and say the Licensing-Rules were greedy or whatever. Might be. But there is another aspect of it. Grubby recently talked about this in a video, I think it was about "What's good an bad in SC2?". And one thing he said was that Blizzard essentially ended the Wild-West regarding Esports-Events. Please don't quote me on it, but I think Grubby mentioned that he like almost missed like 25% and up to 50% of the prizepool he technically earned in WC3, because TOs wouldn't pay him out. He said "you would just show up to an event an play and simply would not get paid at all". Either because TOs really just scammed the players or because they went bankrupt. ESWC for example had a rule in their player contract that they only had to payout prizemoney in a timespan of two years. And I think ESL also wasn't particularly fast in paying out back in the day. Goody protested that once, I think he mentioned a delay of six to nine month?
With the Licensing and Blizzard taking over, that stopped. Now players would not only get their money, but they would get it in a reasonable timeframe. I'm pretty sure if you ask a player if he or she prefers to either play ten events for ten different TOs or three events for the same but get paid all three events guaranteed...I'm pretty certain there is a clear favorite here.
"Money shouldn't be taken from the top and awarded to lesser regions to such a degree"
You need to if you want a global playing field to entertain a global viewership. You bring up the NBA: You are forgetting something here though. The NBA isn't the only basketball-league in the world. It's of course the largest, most important and financially strongest, zero doubt about that. But there are basketball leagues all around the world, especially in Europe. So if you are an aspiring basketball player in Germany, you don't need to hope to get a scholarship for an american College and then either go into the NBA or stop playing Basketball. You can make a career playing Basketball in Germany. Then maybe in Europe. And eventually, you might get to play in the NBA. In return, lots of americans aren't starved out of Basketball if they don't make it into the NBA, but they can go abroad. Again, in Germany, I know for a fact that every team in the third highest Basketball league, which is basically the first one that plays somewhat professional, each team has usually two or three US-players. Now you might say "aha, so region lock is bad, see!", but there is a region-lock. Teams are only allowed that many non-EU-players. Exactly to help develop own talent and protect the local players.
This excourse is an example of course. But the think is, that Esport doesn't work like that exactly. For one, money isn't as big as it is in Basketball, so you can't particularly lower the money per region over and over before there is no money at all. But SC2, like all Esports, has other differences to regular sport aswell. It is usually less "grassroots" and more top-heavy and internationally oriented. There is no "natural distribution" of money in SC2, the money is were Blizzard puts it (atleast in the past, now there is actual natural distribution, with ESL pumping money into it while the korean scene struggles). And as I said before: The goal wasn't to recreate Proleague and OSL/MSL. The goal was to recreate the global success of WC3, with a global playerbase. And it somewhat worked. We have an international viewership and lots of foreigner players. Which I'm certain we wouldn't have if Blizzards entire plan would have been "here Kespa, take our money and do what you want, the rest of the world will git gud on their own and eventually join Proleague LUL."
"There should be smaller tournaments and also teams can provide the money players need"
There always have been regional, smaller tournaments. Often though they didn't pay out enough money, which makes sense. With the rise of Twitch and the heavy promotion of international tournaments, local TOs struggled to provide a product that could earn money.
And as for teams...well, they simply can't provide said money. Easy as that. There are reasons for that of course. First of all, they did that in the past. In WC3, prizemoney was often incredibly top-heavy. We are talking events with 50+ players and only the Top 3 got any prizemoney (hi ESWC again!). So teams filled in to a heavy degree. But in turn, the teamleagues that existed nearly didn't pay out enough money to fund said teams. We are talking finals that teams had to win to even cover their travelcosts. But Esport was brand new and a lot of sponsors were ready to pump in the money to finance teams like MYM and 4Kings. And then 2008 happened and a lot of companies cut their fundings. And the WC3-moneybubble bursted, with an incredible shutdown of teams.
For SC2, teams and organisations that survived tried to be healthier. But the money they didn't pay anymore needed to come from somewhere and that were tournaments. Proleague of course didn't have any of these problems. For one, being entirely offline and very popular in Korea, I assume Proleague generated quite the revenue. And then all teams were owned by the big korean Groups, who had a PR-based interest to invest. Be it SKT (I was shocked to learn that this does not stand for "South Korean Telecom" btw...anyone else?), the KT Group, Samsung...you get it.
With the focus of SC2 being even more on 1v1 competition, teams had a harder time generating revenue...not that it is easy to generate revenue in Esports anyway. So it would be suicide for the scene to put all the "develop talent"-duties on teams who can't really afford that.
I'm sure I've missed some of your points, but again, this is already taking too long in the heat. So I hope I covered the important things.
Quick Response Because I feel like I was getting long winded.
1. Prize money distribution was still a joke even if they were a major contributor to the GSL, the best 30 or 40 or 50 players in the world were sharing the same split as WCS events where maybe combined there were 2 top 20 players or better? Maybe those numbers aren't totally accurate, but the point stands.
2. Those WCS events while having an equal portion of the Blizzard funds ALSO gave equal points towards outside the tournament structure events be it through invites OR WCS points. So while the 20th place Korean is facing harder players, earning the same, and getting no points. There is money given to the 20th player facing nobodies for WCS EU. And the WCS EU #1 player and #2 player were farming points to seed them into events on top of that earning them even more money.
3. None of my post was to say that Afreeca or GSL or GOM were run perfectly while I don't really think you made that claim, I just don't want that confused for anyone reading. But they certainly IMO weren't the biggest fuck ups.
4. I also indicated that Blizzard in part killed TO's. It wasn't just the franchising, it was securing their own events that ran through any attempt to hold your own. It was the attempt at killing Broodwar a scene they had no part in making. And while you said they wanted to make it worldwide, better companies putting out a better product already had done that. Sure in name some of them still exist, and blizzard wasn't the only portion of their downfall, but blizzard basically leeched off the success built by others, came in, overrode their existence, and the SC2 scene has decayed ever since the last games release. I'm not sure the CS2 and SC2 tourmanet scene can fully be compared, though I am glad valve is getting rid of the partnership program, but to be very honest, nothing is going to change. The teams who were serious about CS2 were buying the players and partnerships because that is what they wanted to do.
5. Wild-West. I can see that a tiny bit, but at launch this wasn't WAR3, this was MLG, Dreamhack, ESL, IEM GOMTV. And IIRC SC2 had PLENTY of running events that had issues with payments even while being liscensed by blizzard. The thing was there were so many events, why would you mostly ever even bother going to a unknown entity, when the next day or week there was a real event coming up. Now as for prizepool and distribution of money, this should have been solved forever ago, even an org like Blizzard who was hands off in esports should have demanded to collect all monies dedicated to a prize pool before an event. I think they can fuck right off with their liscense fee as they should only benefit as much as they put into esports. In fact they should probably have to pay events for using their game.
6. The point might not have been as linier when comparing NBA to SC2. But for argument sake I did acknowlege other basketball leagues exist, but their money is far lower, which is accurate. And while no entity holds the rights to basketball the sport, the best players, playing the best other players, get paid more in the big league. The same applies to soccer players. Meanwhile in terms of SC2, it was drastically skewed to being nearly equal everywhere, but also extrodinarily benfitial to be in WCS NA/EU due to the points and invites to other events. And nobody is saying that others shouldn't have a career, I'm just not sure you should be supported at the cost of a better scene and better talent. Honestly kind of on point to NBA/WNBA and how the NBA funds the WNBA's existence. They can live, but until they have a product or ability that is better they haven't earned more. Meanwhile the lesser scenes IMO might have earned a TINY bit less financially but had massive benefits not only in opposition faced, but in easy WCS points and event invites.
7. I don't really care about region lock what so ever. It wouldn't have mattered if the money was where it was supposed to be. Nobody is moving from Korea to NA or EU to farm that WCS event if the 1st place WCS EU was 25th place's prize pool for GSL, and they recived no points for other events. If they were content with that, so be it, good for them, but I don't think you would have even had to address it at that point.
8. You say the the goal was global and what not. And to not replace the OSL/MSl/GSL proleague etc or what not. They rode the twitch/esports boom up, built off the grass roots of those entities. They froze those same entities out and creates a somewhat diverse system. But did nothing to assist in the bubble pop, and have destroyed all of their esports leagues. And while we might have some niche diversity worldwide, we'd still have that without Blizzard's existence because of twich, and if they had never frozen out those other events or money grabbed them, there would still be a foreign scene. So now we have a pretty weak scene, heavily diluted, with far less than there was before all of this even happened. Maybe not far less, but inflation etc.
9. While I'm thinking of it honestly by now it is too bad there isn't a global entity for all of esports that holds the money for prize pools. It could be such a simple thing, but it would probably take too much coordination to get started.
10. Teams. CS2 teams fund themselves without any support outside of their own deals. COD teams do as well. SCBWs teams funded themselves. Salaries varied, demand varied. But they managed to do it on their own. I'm not sure if I do or don't put any blame on Blizzard, but also a lot of it has to do with SC2 not being a team game. Also some of it had to do with teams being weirdly competitive in signing talent and breaking the bank. As for the BW teams I think that was a weird entity/time period. Almost no salaries, proleague was massive, also even if a team itself wasn't directly profitable it was a marketing expense and perhaps that exposure alone was justification. The evolution and changing of everything not just limited to teams means there isn't always just one thing to look at and I think specifically teams and SC2 is perhaps a bit too complex for anyone to ever understand.
In which world (...) Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Look at that list you made, and find which of those players has been or currently is the world champion. Oliveira peaks fucking high
Once, literally once. He’s never made another premier final. Not an international weekender, not an old merged WCS either.
He’s probably hotter than some of those names minus Cure these days to be fair but his overall body of work isn’t even close to a soO or a Classic or a Cure.
In which world (...) Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Look at that list you made, and find which of those players has been or currently is the world champion. Oliveira peaks fucking high
Once, literally once. He’s never made another premier final. Not an international weekender, not an old merged WCS either.
He’s probably hotter than some of those names minus Cure these days to be fair but his overall body of work isn’t even close to a soO or a Classic or a Cure.
Okay he is certainly overhyping Oliveria for sure, but some of the guys you listed have little more than one big win and some have none, unless when I double checked I missed something.
Cure - GSL Soo - MLG + Kato Shin - Nothing Classic - clearly dominates 2x GSL, IEM Schenzhen, WESG, and 2x super tournaments
Might have missed something, but largely excluded weird events and team stuff and based it off competition.
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 26 2024 08:13 WombaT wrote:
On June 26 2024 06:53 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 19:00 WombaT wrote:
On June 25 2024 13:54 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 06:27 Blitzball04 wrote:
On June 24 2024 22:02 lokol4890 wrote:
On June 24 2024 20:52 Ciaus237 wrote: [quote]
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
I was thinking about answering to all points in detail, but it's just too hot here, I'm sorry. So I will give general answers and hope to cover everything.
"The money Blizzard put into GSL was laughable"
When Blizzard stopped the funding for SC2 at the end of 2022, the Prizepool between GSL seasons dropped from 123K to 52K, essentially being halved. And remember that already includes crowdfunding for GSL from '23 forward. So you *might* want to reconsider the statement that Blizzard wasn't paying anything. Pirzepools for ESL events btw dropped only about 25%. So either ESL put in a lot more money into the game than Afreeca or Blizzard didn't fund ESL as heavy as GSL.
"The Blizzard licensing killed TOs"
I will admit, I wasn't around in the first year or something like that for SC2. Back then I was admin/caster for WC3CL and was a bit anti-SC2 and anti-change. Our league was thinking about putting up a second league for SC2 though right from the get-go and the licensing was already a topic. So I'm almost certain that the fact that Blizzard wanted to run the show to a degree was the plan from release on. Either way, this means Blizzard did not kill any TOs that were already running SC2 competitions - they all operated under that label. That was at the time rather new. Pre-2010, no game developer really invested anything into Esports. It was all about ESL, DreamHack, ESWC, WCG and so on...private companies, usually barely in communication with the developer at all. Today, every big developer controls their Esport. Riot started it together with Blizzard (or Blizzard was even first?), but it is the industry standard by now. Valve for example did a string of decisions recently regarding CS2, for example they decided that partnership-depending tournaments were forbidden from 2025 onwards. And you know what? ESL and BLAST both had to follow and accept that decision. That basically really is like the FIBA saying "no, Franchising is banned now" and the NBA goes "haha, okay boss, will do!". Anyway, back to Blizzard. They wanted to run the show for multiple reasons. And they clearly envisioned SC2 as a global Esports. They didn't look towards BroodWar, which was extremly bad in that regard. They looked towards WC3. And still, at the start, they let it run its course, with multiple tournament organizers doing their things. A lot of them probably vanishing because Esports isn't a particularly suistainable business and the Financial Crisis of 2014. WCS got introduced a good chunk later and remember, the first one was this national into regional into global system that was actually really cool, but not particularly thought-through yet. Only after that developed the WCS-system.
Now, you might think and say the Licensing-Rules were greedy or whatever. Might be. But there is another aspect of it. Grubby recently talked about this in a video, I think it was about "What's good an bad in SC2?". And one thing he said was that Blizzard essentially ended the Wild-West regarding Esports-Events. Please don't quote me on it, but I think Grubby mentioned that he like almost missed like 25% and up to 50% of the prizepool he technically earned in WC3, because TOs wouldn't pay him out. He said "you would just show up to an event an play and simply would not get paid at all". Either because TOs really just scammed the players or because they went bankrupt. ESWC for example had a rule in their player contract that they only had to payout prizemoney in a timespan of two years. And I think ESL also wasn't particularly fast in paying out back in the day. Goody protested that once, I think he mentioned a delay of six to nine month?
With the Licensing and Blizzard taking over, that stopped. Now players would not only get their money, but they would get it in a reasonable timeframe. I'm pretty sure if you ask a player if he or she prefers to either play ten events for ten different TOs or three events for the same but get paid all three events guaranteed...I'm pretty certain there is a clear favorite here.
"Money shouldn't be taken from the top and awarded to lesser regions to such a degree"
You need to if you want a global playing field to entertain a global viewership. You bring up the NBA: You are forgetting something here though. The NBA isn't the only basketball-league in the world. It's of course the largest, most important and financially strongest, zero doubt about that. But there are basketball leagues all around the world, especially in Europe. So if you are an aspiring basketball player in Germany, you don't need to hope to get a scholarship for an american College and then either go into the NBA or stop playing Basketball. You can make a career playing Basketball in Germany. Then maybe in Europe. And eventually, you might get to play in the NBA. In return, lots of americans aren't starved out of Basketball if they don't make it into the NBA, but they can go abroad. Again, in Germany, I know for a fact that every team in the third highest Basketball league, which is basically the first one that plays somewhat professional, each team has usually two or three US-players. Now you might say "aha, so region lock is bad, see!", but there is a region-lock. Teams are only allowed that many non-EU-players. Exactly to help develop own talent and protect the local players.
This excourse is an example of course. But the think is, that Esport doesn't work like that exactly. For one, money isn't as big as it is in Basketball, so you can't particularly lower the money per region over and over before there is no money at all. But SC2, like all Esports, has other differences to regular sport aswell. It is usually less "grassroots" and more top-heavy and internationally oriented. There is no "natural distribution" of money in SC2, the money is were Blizzard puts it (atleast in the past, now there is actual natural distribution, with ESL pumping money into it while the korean scene struggles). And as I said before: The goal wasn't to recreate Proleague and OSL/MSL. The goal was to recreate the global success of WC3, with a global playerbase. And it somewhat worked. We have an international viewership and lots of foreigner players. Which I'm certain we wouldn't have if Blizzards entire plan would have been "here Kespa, take our money and do what you want, the rest of the world will git gud on their own and eventually join Proleague LUL."
"There should be smaller tournaments and also teams can provide the money players need"
There always have been regional, smaller tournaments. Often though they didn't pay out enough money, which makes sense. With the rise of Twitch and the heavy promotion of international tournaments, local TOs struggled to provide a product that could earn money.
And as for teams...well, they simply can't provide said money. Easy as that. There are reasons for that of course. First of all, they did that in the past. In WC3, prizemoney was often incredibly top-heavy. We are talking events with 50+ players and only the Top 3 got any prizemoney (hi ESWC again!). So teams filled in to a heavy degree. But in turn, the teamleagues that existed nearly didn't pay out enough money to fund said teams. We are talking finals that teams had to win to even cover their travelcosts. But Esport was brand new and a lot of sponsors were ready to pump in the money to finance teams like MYM and 4Kings. And then 2008 happened and a lot of companies cut their fundings. And the WC3-moneybubble bursted, with an incredible shutdown of teams.
For SC2, teams and organisations that survived tried to be healthier. But the money they didn't pay anymore needed to come from somewhere and that were tournaments. Proleague of course didn't have any of these problems. For one, being entirely offline and very popular in Korea, I assume Proleague generated quite the revenue. And then all teams were owned by the big korean Groups, who had a PR-based interest to invest. Be it SKT (I was shocked to learn that this does not stand for "South Korean Telecom" btw...anyone else?), the KT Group, Samsung...you get it.
With the focus of SC2 being even more on 1v1 competition, teams had a harder time generating revenue...not that it is easy to generate revenue in Esports anyway. So it would be suicide for the scene to put all the "develop talent"-duties on teams who can't really afford that.
I'm sure I've missed some of your points, but again, this is already taking too long in the heat. So I hope I covered the important things.
Quick Response Because I feel like I was getting long winded.
1. Prize money distribution was still a joke even if they were a major contributor to the GSL, the best 30 or 40 or 50 players in the world were sharing the same split as WCS events where maybe combined there were 2 top 20 players or better? Maybe those numbers aren't totally accurate, but the point stands.
2. Those WCS events while having an equal portion of the Blizzard funds ALSO gave equal points towards outside the tournament structure events be it through invites OR WCS points. So while the 20th place Korean is facing harder players, earning the same, and getting no points. There is money given to the 20th player facing nobodies for WCS EU. And the WCS EU #1 player and #2 player were farming points to seed them into events on top of that earning them even more money.
3. None of my post was to say that Afreeca or GSL or GOM were run perfectly while I don't really think you made that claim, I just don't want that confused for anyone reading. But they certainly IMO weren't the biggest fuck ups.
4. I also indicated that Blizzard in part killed TO's. It wasn't just the franchising, it was securing their own events that ran through any attempt to hold your own. It was the attempt at killing Broodwar a scene they had no part in making. And while you said they wanted to make it worldwide, better companies putting out a better product already had done that. Sure in name some of them still exist, and blizzard wasn't the only portion of their downfall, but blizzard basically leeched off the success built by others, came in, overrode their existence, and the SC2 scene has decayed ever since the last games release. I'm not sure the CS2 and SC2 tourmanet scene can fully be compared, though I am glad valve is getting rid of the partnership program, but to be very honest, nothing is going to change. The teams who were serious about CS2 were buying the players and partnerships because that is what they wanted to do.
5. Wild-West. I can see that a tiny bit, but at launch this wasn't WAR3, this was MLG, Dreamhack, ESL, IEM GOMTV. And IIRC SC2 had PLENTY of running events that had issues with payments even while being liscensed by blizzard. The thing was there were so many events, why would you mostly ever even bother going to a unknown entity, when the next day or week there was a real event coming up. Now as for prizepool and distribution of money, this should have been solved forever ago, even an org like Blizzard who was hands off in esports should have demanded to collect all monies dedicated to a prize pool before an event. I think they can fuck right off with their liscense fee as they should only benefit as much as they put into esports. In fact they should probably have to pay events for using their game.
6. The point might not have been as linier when comparing NBA to SC2. But for argument sake I did acknowlege other basketball leagues exist, but their money is far lower, which is accurate. And while no entity holds the rights to basketball the sport, the best players, playing the best other players, get paid more in the big league. The same applies to soccer players. Meanwhile in terms of SC2, it was drastically skewed to being nearly equal everywhere, but also extrodinarily benfitial to be in WCS NA/EU due to the points and invites to other events. And nobody is saying that others shouldn't have a career, I'm just not sure you should be supported at the cost of a better scene and better talent. Honestly kind of on point to NBA/WNBA and how the NBA funds the WNBA's existence. They can live, but until they have a product or ability that is better they haven't earned more. Meanwhile the lesser scenes IMO might have earned a TINY bit less financially but had massive benefits not only in opposition faced, but in easy WCS points and event invites.
7. I don't really care about region lock what so ever. It wouldn't have mattered if the money was where it was supposed to be. Nobody is moving from Korea to NA or EU to farm that WCS event if the 1st place WCS EU was 25th place's prize pool for GSL, and they recived no points for other events. If they were content with that, so be it, good for them, but I don't think you would have even had to address it at that point.
8. You say the the goal was global and what not. And to not replace the OSL/MSl/GSL proleague etc or what not. They rode the twitch/esports boom up, built off the grass roots of those entities. They froze those same entities out and creates a somewhat diverse system. But did nothing to assist in the bubble pop, and have destroyed all of their esports leagues. And while we might have some niche diversity worldwide, we'd still have that without Blizzard's existence because of twich, and if they had never frozen out those other events or money grabbed them, there would still be a foreign scene. So now we have a pretty weak scene, heavily diluted, with far less than there was before all of this even happened. Maybe not far less, but inflation etc.
9. While I'm thinking of it honestly by now it is too bad there isn't a global entity for all of esports that holds the money for prize pools. It could be such a simple thing, but it would probably take too much coordination to get started.
10. Teams. CS2 teams fund themselves without any support outside of their own deals. COD teams do as well. SCBWs teams funded themselves. Salaries varied, demand varied. But they managed to do it on their own. I'm not sure if I do or don't put any blame on Blizzard, but also a lot of it has to do with SC2 not being a team game. Also some of it had to do with teams being weirdly competitive in signing talent and breaking the bank. As for the BW teams I think that was a weird entity/time period. Almost no salaries, proleague was massive, also even if a team itself wasn't directly profitable it was a marketing expense and perhaps that exposure alone was justification. The evolution and changing of everything not just limited to teams means there isn't always just one thing to look at and I think specifically teams and SC2 is perhaps a bit too complex for anyone to ever understand.
I will try to keep it quick aswell:
1. Prize money was where the viewership was and where Blizzard saw the opportunities to grow. Was that completly fair? No, but that wasn't the goal. Blizzard idea also wasn't wrong as proven by Riot: They essentially do the same, even though the Korean LCK is atleast at the top much stronger than the EU LEC. But you have a global playerbase, global opportunities to join the pro-scenes and therefore also global viewership with lots of "local heroes".
2. The entire world had to share for some time the same amount of BlizzCon-Slots than Korea. Korean Topdogs also dominated every global qualifier. We really don't need to pity the korean scene at these times...
3. I mean, eventually it was GSL/GOM/Afreeca who run it into the ground, so yeah, feels like they fucked that up big time?
4. Literally every developer did that. Riot started out with cooperations with ESL, Counterstrike was run by so many different orgs etc. And now, every developer dictates the rule of their games, the entire economy and scene. Some cooperate with others, some just do it themselves.
5. The entire thing got massively better with Blizzards envolvement. Sure, there were still hiccups (still are today), but it got SO much better for everyone involved. I also don't understand how you don't want Blizzard involved, but at the same time they "should have collected the money" for each event? That feels contradictory... And paying them to run their game? That's not only a weird idea on a general basis, but they literally put millions of dollars into the game, essentially paying ESL and GSL to run their game?
6. As I said before: You can cut the payment of a NBA player many times for each individual national league before you reach a salary that the player can't live from anymore. How much money can you take from the GSL prizemoney before a player can't live from that?
7. "Region-lock would have been okay if the Money was where it was supposed to be" - it was. And it is honestly a weird take to think Korea just had the natural rights to be the center of SC2. What if Blizzard had actually followed your train of thought? Their own Proleague, their own Starleague...but in the US. Basically like the Overwatch League. All Koreans would have needed to come over and play? Would have that been fine for you? All the money at one point, that point just happened to be not Korea?
8. Of course Blizzard hoped that BroodWar "dies". Blizzard actively killed WC3 for SC2. Because they released their new game and hoped it would be the next big thing. So of course they wanted BroodWar gone...not that there was much BroodWar to kill outside of Korea. Same as Valve killed 1.6 and Source with Global Offensive...why would you compete with yourself? And sure, Blizzard was riding the Twitch-Hype...multiple times btw, I sometimes feel Hearthstone invented the "modern streamer". But that alone didn't guarantee the success of the game. Blizzard invested heavily, even pre-WCS. But sure, maybe things could have gone better without WCS...could have gone a lot worse aswell. Remember that GSL got its massive prizepool also from Blizzard. Maybe without Blizzard-intervention at all, there is no GSL. They run two seasons and fail miserably, while Kespa has no interest to switch to a new game. So there is no incentive to play SC2 in Korea and the game is gone from there, with maybe players like Mvp trying to make it outside of Korea. That is, in my opinion, a completly realistic scenario.
9. And what would that change? You can't even get all big team spors into one room, why would it work with gaming? EWC Foundation will surely try, but Valve, Blizzard and especially Riot are far too stubborn for that. What we need in Esports is very hands-on developers. I know not everyone likes it, but I will always defend that Riot created the perfect esports scene for their game.
10. Teams in CS2 are not profitable. Most orgs literally bankrupt themselves, needing constant input of cash from the outside. Even ESL burns through massive amounts of cash each year. Riot recently adressed this problem for LoL and tried to push for more sustainability, opening more revenue options for themselves and the teams. But in general, Esports is still sadly a business in constant need of investment.
It feels like you put a lot of blame on Blizzard, while simultaneously ignoring all the work they have done for the game. And while you might hate Blizzard for their investments into the foreign scene instead of spending every dim on Korea, eventually that was the right call, as the korean scene was far too small to support a potentially global success like SC2. And if anything, the korean scene might be thankful for the money sunk into GSL instead of Blizzard just saying "well, if you want to play, just move to Europe, there are the viewers anyway."
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
To be fair to Mizen, GSL was the most prestigious tournament for the first few years of sc2 existence. However that is no longer the case for close to almost a decade now. Also Maru only started to win the GSL when it lost its meaning already. I know people will dispute this point to boost Maru but that’s the truth. Maru can barely win anything outside of Korea.
Being a big fish in a small pond does not = goat contender
The only tournaments people care about or the hardest tournaments to win are the ones Serral are attending. Everything else just pretty much or feels like a tier B tournament.
Also I believe most people couldn’t care less what anyone’s result were in the pro league. It’s already proven it was a fix league so any result is automatically voided
I’m sure Mizen did lots of research into his data but stats/data are flawed and bias. It’s like people saying Lebron is a goat contender because of his “stats”, when the general consensus was will and always will be Jordan.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
It's crazy how much any player that takes maps off Serral gets overrated. Oliveira just has a weirdly good matchup vs Serral atm he is still worse than most of the Koreans. Classic has a very favored all time record and even in the last 12 months is 50-50 vs him. Same thing with Shin who actually has a dominant record vs Oliveira even when only looking at 2024 series. Cure is definitely better than Oliveira as well both head to head and vs pretty much every player in the world besides Serral.
He had one good match against Serral, he’s never beaten him in a tournament. Granted Cure isn’t doing much better with like a 2-16 match record.
I mean style does come into matchups too, player a may > player b who owns > player c, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a > c
Personally I think SHIN Rag is pretty underrated for his results over his career, probably down to his style. For whatever reason it’s ruthless strategic genius when Dark does some naughtiness, but cheesing out better players when Rag SHIN does.
Conversely I think Oliveira is a tad overrated, largely off one big tournament run, partly because he does play a thrilling style when he’s on song.
Cure has more Ro4+ performances in premier tournies since 2023 than Oliveira has had in his whole career, I’d have a real hard time placing Cure behind him.
If Maru’s still absolutely the Terran god unless one is a maniac, Cure is the clear next in line if we’re talking consistency and a rounded game if not quite hitting the heights Mary does, and Clem can hit those heights but not as frequently. Oliveira can hit huge heights too but it’s really infrequent
What's crazy about Cure is he's like the real heromarine of the Korean scene, in that he's so unbelievably consistent but almost never beats the absolute top players. Rarely, yes. But almost never.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
I mean, you just have to compute the odds of Maru's run on aligulac and the odds of Serral on the same website, and it'll become obvious which run was harder.
Maru in a Bo5 > beating Classic and SHIN a few times in Bo3s herO = herO Oliveira ~ Cure
I don't really care about Aligulac odds, it's just an algo. It's not obvious at all.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 26 2024 08:13 WombaT wrote:
On June 26 2024 06:53 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 19:00 WombaT wrote:
On June 25 2024 13:54 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 06:27 Blitzball04 wrote:
On June 24 2024 22:02 lokol4890 wrote: [quote]
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
I was thinking about answering to all points in detail, but it's just too hot here, I'm sorry. So I will give general answers and hope to cover everything.
"The money Blizzard put into GSL was laughable"
When Blizzard stopped the funding for SC2 at the end of 2022, the Prizepool between GSL seasons dropped from 123K to 52K, essentially being halved. And remember that already includes crowdfunding for GSL from '23 forward. So you *might* want to reconsider the statement that Blizzard wasn't paying anything. Pirzepools for ESL events btw dropped only about 25%. So either ESL put in a lot more money into the game than Afreeca or Blizzard didn't fund ESL as heavy as GSL.
"The Blizzard licensing killed TOs"
I will admit, I wasn't around in the first year or something like that for SC2. Back then I was admin/caster for WC3CL and was a bit anti-SC2 and anti-change. Our league was thinking about putting up a second league for SC2 though right from the get-go and the licensing was already a topic. So I'm almost certain that the fact that Blizzard wanted to run the show to a degree was the plan from release on. Either way, this means Blizzard did not kill any TOs that were already running SC2 competitions - they all operated under that label. That was at the time rather new. Pre-2010, no game developer really invested anything into Esports. It was all about ESL, DreamHack, ESWC, WCG and so on...private companies, usually barely in communication with the developer at all. Today, every big developer controls their Esport. Riot started it together with Blizzard (or Blizzard was even first?), but it is the industry standard by now. Valve for example did a string of decisions recently regarding CS2, for example they decided that partnership-depending tournaments were forbidden from 2025 onwards. And you know what? ESL and BLAST both had to follow and accept that decision. That basically really is like the FIBA saying "no, Franchising is banned now" and the NBA goes "haha, okay boss, will do!". Anyway, back to Blizzard. They wanted to run the show for multiple reasons. And they clearly envisioned SC2 as a global Esports. They didn't look towards BroodWar, which was extremly bad in that regard. They looked towards WC3. And still, at the start, they let it run its course, with multiple tournament organizers doing their things. A lot of them probably vanishing because Esports isn't a particularly suistainable business and the Financial Crisis of 2014. WCS got introduced a good chunk later and remember, the first one was this national into regional into global system that was actually really cool, but not particularly thought-through yet. Only after that developed the WCS-system.
Now, you might think and say the Licensing-Rules were greedy or whatever. Might be. But there is another aspect of it. Grubby recently talked about this in a video, I think it was about "What's good an bad in SC2?". And one thing he said was that Blizzard essentially ended the Wild-West regarding Esports-Events. Please don't quote me on it, but I think Grubby mentioned that he like almost missed like 25% and up to 50% of the prizepool he technically earned in WC3, because TOs wouldn't pay him out. He said "you would just show up to an event an play and simply would not get paid at all". Either because TOs really just scammed the players or because they went bankrupt. ESWC for example had a rule in their player contract that they only had to payout prizemoney in a timespan of two years. And I think ESL also wasn't particularly fast in paying out back in the day. Goody protested that once, I think he mentioned a delay of six to nine month?
With the Licensing and Blizzard taking over, that stopped. Now players would not only get their money, but they would get it in a reasonable timeframe. I'm pretty sure if you ask a player if he or she prefers to either play ten events for ten different TOs or three events for the same but get paid all three events guaranteed...I'm pretty certain there is a clear favorite here.
"Money shouldn't be taken from the top and awarded to lesser regions to such a degree"
You need to if you want a global playing field to entertain a global viewership. You bring up the NBA: You are forgetting something here though. The NBA isn't the only basketball-league in the world. It's of course the largest, most important and financially strongest, zero doubt about that. But there are basketball leagues all around the world, especially in Europe. So if you are an aspiring basketball player in Germany, you don't need to hope to get a scholarship for an american College and then either go into the NBA or stop playing Basketball. You can make a career playing Basketball in Germany. Then maybe in Europe. And eventually, you might get to play in the NBA. In return, lots of americans aren't starved out of Basketball if they don't make it into the NBA, but they can go abroad. Again, in Germany, I know for a fact that every team in the third highest Basketball league, which is basically the first one that plays somewhat professional, each team has usually two or three US-players. Now you might say "aha, so region lock is bad, see!", but there is a region-lock. Teams are only allowed that many non-EU-players. Exactly to help develop own talent and protect the local players.
This excourse is an example of course. But the think is, that Esport doesn't work like that exactly. For one, money isn't as big as it is in Basketball, so you can't particularly lower the money per region over and over before there is no money at all. But SC2, like all Esports, has other differences to regular sport aswell. It is usually less "grassroots" and more top-heavy and internationally oriented. There is no "natural distribution" of money in SC2, the money is were Blizzard puts it (atleast in the past, now there is actual natural distribution, with ESL pumping money into it while the korean scene struggles). And as I said before: The goal wasn't to recreate Proleague and OSL/MSL. The goal was to recreate the global success of WC3, with a global playerbase. And it somewhat worked. We have an international viewership and lots of foreigner players. Which I'm certain we wouldn't have if Blizzards entire plan would have been "here Kespa, take our money and do what you want, the rest of the world will git gud on their own and eventually join Proleague LUL."
"There should be smaller tournaments and also teams can provide the money players need"
There always have been regional, smaller tournaments. Often though they didn't pay out enough money, which makes sense. With the rise of Twitch and the heavy promotion of international tournaments, local TOs struggled to provide a product that could earn money.
And as for teams...well, they simply can't provide said money. Easy as that. There are reasons for that of course. First of all, they did that in the past. In WC3, prizemoney was often incredibly top-heavy. We are talking events with 50+ players and only the Top 3 got any prizemoney (hi ESWC again!). So teams filled in to a heavy degree. But in turn, the teamleagues that existed nearly didn't pay out enough money to fund said teams. We are talking finals that teams had to win to even cover their travelcosts. But Esport was brand new and a lot of sponsors were ready to pump in the money to finance teams like MYM and 4Kings. And then 2008 happened and a lot of companies cut their fundings. And the WC3-moneybubble bursted, with an incredible shutdown of teams.
For SC2, teams and organisations that survived tried to be healthier. But the money they didn't pay anymore needed to come from somewhere and that were tournaments. Proleague of course didn't have any of these problems. For one, being entirely offline and very popular in Korea, I assume Proleague generated quite the revenue. And then all teams were owned by the big korean Groups, who had a PR-based interest to invest. Be it SKT (I was shocked to learn that this does not stand for "South Korean Telecom" btw...anyone else?), the KT Group, Samsung...you get it.
With the focus of SC2 being even more on 1v1 competition, teams had a harder time generating revenue...not that it is easy to generate revenue in Esports anyway. So it would be suicide for the scene to put all the "develop talent"-duties on teams who can't really afford that.
I'm sure I've missed some of your points, but again, this is already taking too long in the heat. So I hope I covered the important things.
Quick Response Because I feel like I was getting long winded.
1. Prize money distribution was still a joke even if they were a major contributor to the GSL, the best 30 or 40 or 50 players in the world were sharing the same split as WCS events where maybe combined there were 2 top 20 players or better? Maybe those numbers aren't totally accurate, but the point stands.
2. Those WCS events while having an equal portion of the Blizzard funds ALSO gave equal points towards outside the tournament structure events be it through invites OR WCS points. So while the 20th place Korean is facing harder players, earning the same, and getting no points. There is money given to the 20th player facing nobodies for WCS EU. And the WCS EU #1 player and #2 player were farming points to seed them into events on top of that earning them even more money.
3. None of my post was to say that Afreeca or GSL or GOM were run perfectly while I don't really think you made that claim, I just don't want that confused for anyone reading. But they certainly IMO weren't the biggest fuck ups.
4. I also indicated that Blizzard in part killed TO's. It wasn't just the franchising, it was securing their own events that ran through any attempt to hold your own. It was the attempt at killing Broodwar a scene they had no part in making. And while you said they wanted to make it worldwide, better companies putting out a better product already had done that. Sure in name some of them still exist, and blizzard wasn't the only portion of their downfall, but blizzard basically leeched off the success built by others, came in, overrode their existence, and the SC2 scene has decayed ever since the last games release. I'm not sure the CS2 and SC2 tourmanet scene can fully be compared, though I am glad valve is getting rid of the partnership program, but to be very honest, nothing is going to change. The teams who were serious about CS2 were buying the players and partnerships because that is what they wanted to do.
5. Wild-West. I can see that a tiny bit, but at launch this wasn't WAR3, this was MLG, Dreamhack, ESL, IEM GOMTV. And IIRC SC2 had PLENTY of running events that had issues with payments even while being liscensed by blizzard. The thing was there were so many events, why would you mostly ever even bother going to a unknown entity, when the next day or week there was a real event coming up. Now as for prizepool and distribution of money, this should have been solved forever ago, even an org like Blizzard who was hands off in esports should have demanded to collect all monies dedicated to a prize pool before an event. I think they can fuck right off with their liscense fee as they should only benefit as much as they put into esports. In fact they should probably have to pay events for using their game.
6. The point might not have been as linier when comparing NBA to SC2. But for argument sake I did acknowlege other basketball leagues exist, but their money is far lower, which is accurate. And while no entity holds the rights to basketball the sport, the best players, playing the best other players, get paid more in the big league. The same applies to soccer players. Meanwhile in terms of SC2, it was drastically skewed to being nearly equal everywhere, but also extrodinarily benfitial to be in WCS NA/EU due to the points and invites to other events. And nobody is saying that others shouldn't have a career, I'm just not sure you should be supported at the cost of a better scene and better talent. Honestly kind of on point to NBA/WNBA and how the NBA funds the WNBA's existence. They can live, but until they have a product or ability that is better they haven't earned more. Meanwhile the lesser scenes IMO might have earned a TINY bit less financially but had massive benefits not only in opposition faced, but in easy WCS points and event invites.
7. I don't really care about region lock what so ever. It wouldn't have mattered if the money was where it was supposed to be. Nobody is moving from Korea to NA or EU to farm that WCS event if the 1st place WCS EU was 25th place's prize pool for GSL, and they recived no points for other events. If they were content with that, so be it, good for them, but I don't think you would have even had to address it at that point.
8. You say the the goal was global and what not. And to not replace the OSL/MSl/GSL proleague etc or what not. They rode the twitch/esports boom up, built off the grass roots of those entities. They froze those same entities out and creates a somewhat diverse system. But did nothing to assist in the bubble pop, and have destroyed all of their esports leagues. And while we might have some niche diversity worldwide, we'd still have that without Blizzard's existence because of twich, and if they had never frozen out those other events or money grabbed them, there would still be a foreign scene. So now we have a pretty weak scene, heavily diluted, with far less than there was before all of this even happened. Maybe not far less, but inflation etc.
9. While I'm thinking of it honestly by now it is too bad there isn't a global entity for all of esports that holds the money for prize pools. It could be such a simple thing, but it would probably take too much coordination to get started.
10. Teams. CS2 teams fund themselves without any support outside of their own deals. COD teams do as well. SCBWs teams funded themselves. Salaries varied, demand varied. But they managed to do it on their own. I'm not sure if I do or don't put any blame on Blizzard, but also a lot of it has to do with SC2 not being a team game. Also some of it had to do with teams being weirdly competitive in signing talent and breaking the bank. As for the BW teams I think that was a weird entity/time period. Almost no salaries, proleague was massive, also even if a team itself wasn't directly profitable it was a marketing expense and perhaps that exposure alone was justification. The evolution and changing of everything not just limited to teams means there isn't always just one thing to look at and I think specifically teams and SC2 is perhaps a bit too complex for anyone to ever understand.
I will try to keep it quick aswell:
1. Prize money was where the viewership was and where Blizzard saw the opportunities to grow. Was that completly fair? No, but that wasn't the goal. Blizzard idea also wasn't wrong as proven by Riot: They essentially do the same, even though the Korean LCK is atleast at the top much stronger than the EU LEC. But you have a global playerbase, global opportunities to join the pro-scenes and therefore also global viewership with lots of "local heroes".
2. The entire world had to share for some time the same amount of BlizzCon-Slots than Korea. Korean Topdogs also dominated every global qualifier. We really don't need to pity the korean scene at these times...
3. I mean, eventually it was GSL/GOM/Afreeca who run it into the ground, so yeah, feels like they fucked that up big time?
4. Literally every developer did that. Riot started out with cooperations with ESL, Counterstrike was run by so many different orgs etc. And now, every developer dictates the rule of their games, the entire economy and scene. Some cooperate with others, some just do it themselves.
5. The entire thing got massively better with Blizzards envolvement. Sure, there were still hiccups (still are today), but it got SO much better for everyone involved. I also don't understand how you don't want Blizzard involved, but at the same time they "should have collected the money" for each event? That feels contradictory... And paying them to run their game? That's not only a weird idea on a general basis, but they literally put millions of dollars into the game, essentially paying ESL and GSL to run their game?
6. As I said before: You can cut the payment of a NBA player many times for each individual national league before you reach a salary that the player can't live from anymore. How much money can you take from the GSL prizemoney before a player can't live from that?
7. "Region-lock would have been okay if the Money was where it was supposed to be" - it was. And it is honestly a weird take to think Korea just had the natural rights to be the center of SC2. What if Blizzard had actually followed your train of thought? Their own Proleague, their own Starleague...but in the US. Basically like the Overwatch League. All Koreans would have needed to come over and play? Would have that been fine for you? All the money at one point, that point just happened to be not Korea?
8. Of course Blizzard hoped that BroodWar "dies". Blizzard actively killed WC3 for SC2. Because they released their new game and hoped it would be the next big thing. So of course they wanted BroodWar gone...not that there was much BroodWar to kill outside of Korea. Same as Valve killed 1.6 and Source with Global Offensive...why would you compete with yourself? And sure, Blizzard was riding the Twitch-Hype...multiple times btw, I sometimes feel Hearthstone invented the "modern streamer". But that alone didn't guarantee the success of the game. Blizzard invested heavily, even pre-WCS. But sure, maybe things could have gone better without WCS...could have gone a lot worse aswell. Remember that GSL got its massive prizepool also from Blizzard. Maybe without Blizzard-intervention at all, there is no GSL. They run two seasons and fail miserably, while Kespa has no interest to switch to a new game. So there is no incentive to play SC2 in Korea and the game is gone from there, with maybe players like Mvp trying to make it outside of Korea. That is, in my opinion, a completly realistic scenario.
9. And what would that change? You can't even get all big team spors into one room, why would it work with gaming? EWC Foundation will surely try, but Valve, Blizzard and especially Riot are far too stubborn for that. What we need in Esports is very hands-on developers. I know not everyone likes it, but I will always defend that Riot created the perfect esports scene for their game.
10. Teams in CS2 are not profitable. Most orgs literally bankrupt themselves, needing constant input of cash from the outside. Even ESL burns through massive amounts of cash each year. Riot recently adressed this problem for LoL and tried to push for more sustainability, opening more revenue options for themselves and the teams. But in general, Esports is still sadly a business in constant need of investment.
It feels like you put a lot of blame on Blizzard, while simultaneously ignoring all the work they have done for the game. And while you might hate Blizzard for their investments into the foreign scene instead of spending every dim on Korea, eventually that was the right call, as the korean scene was far too small to support a potentially global success like SC2. And if anything, the korean scene might be thankful for the money sunk into GSL instead of Blizzard just saying "well, if you want to play, just move to Europe, there are the viewers anyway."
1. Was it really based off viewership? I mean we don't even have GOM numbers right? As for growing I get that, but a minimal investment in those scenes keeping them operating and viable was what was needed. I wasn't suggesting eliminating all funding. I just don't think that #1 EU WCS should receive anywhere near the support as #1 GSL winner. See and that would still be unfair, but perfectly fine, and I mean unfair because EU I'm not sure deserved even that much. As for the "growing" they were trying to do, honestly the WCS effort I don't think had much to do with it, people were hungry regardless for anything SC2 related. Just look at the weekend events. I do get trying to be universal, in some regard, but not at the cost of better teams/players getting far less than people simply because they live in an easier location to farm.
2. As for the entire world sharing the same slots to Blizzcon I still think that was a shame too and not for the foreign side of things, they got far more all things considered. At the end of the day if you're hosting a competition I see room for having avenues all over, but not that extreme. You should have the best of the best HEAVILY at any event especially if it is invite only. The only question to ask is were there better players sitting at home than the ones that got a free pass while playing in a weaker scene and collecting free prize money. The answer to that is for sure yes. Maybe a ranking system should have been put in place to determine a bit of it.
3. Not entirely sure about who ran what into the ground. I know that blizzard's limitations weren't a joke. But GSL/GOM/Afreeca weren't the leaders of events in Korea until Blizzard started favoring them. Then with the killing of SCBW at the time it eliminated their viability. And with the general interest dwindling down and them causing unreparable harm to the BW scene what was really left? Nobody else was there to support the otherside, meanwhile if OSL/MSL/Proleague/BW still existed there might be some more general interest in SC2 to this day.
4. You are right a ton of people took over to make things more organized. Meanwhile those companies are directly funding the events, have pay requirements for players, and haven't backed out of their scenes. Blizzard came to leech off the success of them, take over, charge them money, killed off competition, and then ran away. There is a big difference IMO between the two. And SC2 isn't the only Acti-Blizz title that is suffering massively due to their own stupidity.
5. I don't want Blizzard involved with managing events or leeching off them. I don't think that the only fee to running an event is that Blizzard holds the prize pool is a massive ask. Though again later on I talked about a separate entity. Either way would have been fine. But Blizzard in control of anything esports related was bound to go this way.
6. I don't know is every single Code S player at the time able to fund their existence from their full time job, while hobbyists can collect that same cash in other supported events globally? Should I be able to walk onto a pickup game at the park and earn the same money as an EU league player? There are retirements and game switchers and streamers who backed off or sacraficed their competitive ability due to finances who were better than those who were getting the bag in the other circuts.
7. CS best players are EU, main events and organization surround EU. SCBW best players are KOR main events in KOR. COD best players NA (usually) main events in NA. SC2 best players in KOR mainly, but hey let's be the weird one and make this game super global. And it isn't about some sort of natual right they had the players and the infastructure already there.
8. Valve didn't kill 1.5 with source. Nor either with CSGO as events were still allowed to run on the previous titles. Eventually when GO cleaned up tournaments/money/players all volunatarily moved to GO. This of course didn't happen with CS2 as they did kill off GO in that you simply cannot play it. And one would argue that the transition made to GO went more smoothly than to CS2 because nobody was rushed and it gave time for them to update the game. As to competition for the starcraft series, why remaster the game you tried to kill a few years previously lol? And who says SC2 wouldn't have been better even with BW around? We won't know because blizzard again had to step in. Sure you are right maybe there isn't a GSL without Blizzard, perhaps there is OSL/MSL/Starleage for SC2. We don't know b/c Blizzard killed those too. Which killed the remaining teams which were trying to stay alive. All in order to ride the hype of work everyone else put in, leech off that success, just to bail out, leaving a fairly weak scene. It actually isn't as bad as I thought it was, but still a very dead worldwide game now. Dead probably isn't the right term, but completely decimated perhaps? Just like they did with BW and OWL and CDL. See because those entities all existed for years before Blizzard even thought about esports without any Blizzard funding what so ever.
9. That someone would have the prize pool ahead of time and less schenanigans. They could also state before an event happens if they have the money or not. So you could still choose to go, but I bet a lot of people would skip it. You're talking about big companies when you're talking about valve/blizzard/riot. I'm not talking about their funds because they pay and they could easiyl be sued. I'm talking about if JoeShmo SC2 tournament wants to advertise a 2000 prize pool tournament that entity would hold that cash. It didn't HAVE to be a 4th party (?) it could have just as well been Blizzard who said you must have the prize pool up front or valve or whoever. But then at least a known entity is on the hook for it.
10. Profitibility in CS2 depends on a wide factor. There are certainly some profitable ones. Though you are right some TOs and Orgs are betting on the future or dilution to make ends meet. But those are rolling dice that they chose to pick up. Meanwhile there are plenty of successful cases, honestly the best being the Korean market as their funding was essentially a marketing campaign year after year. So teams weren't diluting themselves or losing control or gambling, so much as they were a tool for companies to use to advertise, and the product was attached to SC players. Outside of that I'm not sure anyone did as great, but so many fell into the bubble trap.
I do put most of all of the blame on Blizzard for sure. I'm not neglecting some efforts were made, but it was nothing crazy, nor impressive, and was leeching in nature. Their entire esports portfolio since their involvement has largely collapsed while others are maintaining just fine. LOL/Valorant? Dota2/CS? And they didn't have to kill off anything to fake their success. So you can't blame the collapse solely on the bubble as they all existed in that same bubble. It feels like you think that Blizzard did something that others weren't already doing and had good intentions, when in reality they just wanted to leech money off of everyone, which is why Acti Blizzard titles are struggling or dying or dead while the rest are doing fine.
In which world (...) Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Look at that list you made, and find which of those players has been or currently is the world champion. Oliveira peaks fucking high
Once, literally once. He’s never made another premier final. Not an international weekender, not an old merged WCS either.
He’s probably hotter than some of those names minus Cure these days to be fair but his overall body of work isn’t even close to a soO or a Classic or a Cure.
Okay he is certainly overhyping Oliveria for sure, but some of the guys you listed have little more than one big win and some have none, unless when I double checked I missed something.
Cure - GSL Soo - MLG + Kato Shin - Nothing Classic - clearly dominates 2x GSL, IEM Schenzhen, WESG, and 2x super tournaments
Might have missed something, but largely excluded weird events and team stuff and based it off competition.
Oliveira has made one Premier final in his career, granted he won it and won big, he’s only made 2 other premier Ro4s (outside of the old merged WCS, where he made a couple of Ro4s too)
It’s not nothing obviously!
Personally I actually think it’s cool to have if not a ‘one hit’ wonder, something kinda like that as a big fun hyped storyline, and he’s a great talent no doubt.
But as a consistent presence at the business end of the higher quality competitions he’s closer to a Heromarine or a Special than he is to some of these blokes.
In which world (...) Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Look at that list you made, and find which of those players has been or currently is the world champion. Oliveira peaks fucking high
Once, literally once. He’s never made another premier final. Not an international weekender, not an old merged WCS either.
He’s probably hotter than some of those names minus Cure these days to be fair but his overall body of work isn’t even close to a soO or a Classic or a Cure.
Okay he is certainly overhyping Oliveria for sure, but some of the guys you listed have little more than one big win and some have none, unless when I double checked I missed something.
Cure - GSL Soo - MLG + Kato Shin - Nothing Classic - clearly dominates 2x GSL, IEM Schenzhen, WESG, and 2x super tournaments
Might have missed something, but largely excluded weird events and team stuff and based it off competition.
Oliveira has made one Premier final in his career, granted he won it and won big, he’s only made 2 other premier Ro4s (outside of the old merged WCS, where he made a couple of Ro4s too)
It’s not nothing obviously!
Personally I actually think it’s cool to have if not a ‘one hit’ wonder, something kinda like that as a big fun hyped storyline, and he’s a great talent no doubt.
But as a consistent presence at the business end of the higher quality competitions he’s closer to a Heromarine or a Special than he is to some of these blokes.
I agree with you mostly, was simply pointing out that cure and soo and shin don't have massive accolades to their name either. Now if you're counting Ro4's and Ro8's and their totals the math might change, but they also have some years on him too iirc.
Also considering that his Kato was in 2023, I'm not sure he is a confirmed 1 hit, but only time will tell. I was merely pointing out that some of the names you listed while consistent and continual attempts have happened don't have the trophy cabinet that instantly makes them leagues ahead. Reaching a RO4 or finals or RO8 at these big events is a great achievement, but wins are wins, stopping short of that IMO doesn't matter if you're 2nd or 8th or 16th. A bad bracket or a lucky bracket can determine that.
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 26 2024 08:13 WombaT wrote:
On June 26 2024 06:53 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 19:00 WombaT wrote:
On June 25 2024 13:54 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 06:27 Blitzball04 wrote: [quote]
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
I was thinking about answering to all points in detail, but it's just too hot here, I'm sorry. So I will give general answers and hope to cover everything.
"The money Blizzard put into GSL was laughable"
When Blizzard stopped the funding for SC2 at the end of 2022, the Prizepool between GSL seasons dropped from 123K to 52K, essentially being halved. And remember that already includes crowdfunding for GSL from '23 forward. So you *might* want to reconsider the statement that Blizzard wasn't paying anything. Pirzepools for ESL events btw dropped only about 25%. So either ESL put in a lot more money into the game than Afreeca or Blizzard didn't fund ESL as heavy as GSL.
"The Blizzard licensing killed TOs"
I will admit, I wasn't around in the first year or something like that for SC2. Back then I was admin/caster for WC3CL and was a bit anti-SC2 and anti-change. Our league was thinking about putting up a second league for SC2 though right from the get-go and the licensing was already a topic. So I'm almost certain that the fact that Blizzard wanted to run the show to a degree was the plan from release on. Either way, this means Blizzard did not kill any TOs that were already running SC2 competitions - they all operated under that label. That was at the time rather new. Pre-2010, no game developer really invested anything into Esports. It was all about ESL, DreamHack, ESWC, WCG and so on...private companies, usually barely in communication with the developer at all. Today, every big developer controls their Esport. Riot started it together with Blizzard (or Blizzard was even first?), but it is the industry standard by now. Valve for example did a string of decisions recently regarding CS2, for example they decided that partnership-depending tournaments were forbidden from 2025 onwards. And you know what? ESL and BLAST both had to follow and accept that decision. That basically really is like the FIBA saying "no, Franchising is banned now" and the NBA goes "haha, okay boss, will do!". Anyway, back to Blizzard. They wanted to run the show for multiple reasons. And they clearly envisioned SC2 as a global Esports. They didn't look towards BroodWar, which was extremly bad in that regard. They looked towards WC3. And still, at the start, they let it run its course, with multiple tournament organizers doing their things. A lot of them probably vanishing because Esports isn't a particularly suistainable business and the Financial Crisis of 2014. WCS got introduced a good chunk later and remember, the first one was this national into regional into global system that was actually really cool, but not particularly thought-through yet. Only after that developed the WCS-system.
Now, you might think and say the Licensing-Rules were greedy or whatever. Might be. But there is another aspect of it. Grubby recently talked about this in a video, I think it was about "What's good an bad in SC2?". And one thing he said was that Blizzard essentially ended the Wild-West regarding Esports-Events. Please don't quote me on it, but I think Grubby mentioned that he like almost missed like 25% and up to 50% of the prizepool he technically earned in WC3, because TOs wouldn't pay him out. He said "you would just show up to an event an play and simply would not get paid at all". Either because TOs really just scammed the players or because they went bankrupt. ESWC for example had a rule in their player contract that they only had to payout prizemoney in a timespan of two years. And I think ESL also wasn't particularly fast in paying out back in the day. Goody protested that once, I think he mentioned a delay of six to nine month?
With the Licensing and Blizzard taking over, that stopped. Now players would not only get their money, but they would get it in a reasonable timeframe. I'm pretty sure if you ask a player if he or she prefers to either play ten events for ten different TOs or three events for the same but get paid all three events guaranteed...I'm pretty certain there is a clear favorite here.
"Money shouldn't be taken from the top and awarded to lesser regions to such a degree"
You need to if you want a global playing field to entertain a global viewership. You bring up the NBA: You are forgetting something here though. The NBA isn't the only basketball-league in the world. It's of course the largest, most important and financially strongest, zero doubt about that. But there are basketball leagues all around the world, especially in Europe. So if you are an aspiring basketball player in Germany, you don't need to hope to get a scholarship for an american College and then either go into the NBA or stop playing Basketball. You can make a career playing Basketball in Germany. Then maybe in Europe. And eventually, you might get to play in the NBA. In return, lots of americans aren't starved out of Basketball if they don't make it into the NBA, but they can go abroad. Again, in Germany, I know for a fact that every team in the third highest Basketball league, which is basically the first one that plays somewhat professional, each team has usually two or three US-players. Now you might say "aha, so region lock is bad, see!", but there is a region-lock. Teams are only allowed that many non-EU-players. Exactly to help develop own talent and protect the local players.
This excourse is an example of course. But the think is, that Esport doesn't work like that exactly. For one, money isn't as big as it is in Basketball, so you can't particularly lower the money per region over and over before there is no money at all. But SC2, like all Esports, has other differences to regular sport aswell. It is usually less "grassroots" and more top-heavy and internationally oriented. There is no "natural distribution" of money in SC2, the money is were Blizzard puts it (atleast in the past, now there is actual natural distribution, with ESL pumping money into it while the korean scene struggles). And as I said before: The goal wasn't to recreate Proleague and OSL/MSL. The goal was to recreate the global success of WC3, with a global playerbase. And it somewhat worked. We have an international viewership and lots of foreigner players. Which I'm certain we wouldn't have if Blizzards entire plan would have been "here Kespa, take our money and do what you want, the rest of the world will git gud on their own and eventually join Proleague LUL."
"There should be smaller tournaments and also teams can provide the money players need"
There always have been regional, smaller tournaments. Often though they didn't pay out enough money, which makes sense. With the rise of Twitch and the heavy promotion of international tournaments, local TOs struggled to provide a product that could earn money.
And as for teams...well, they simply can't provide said money. Easy as that. There are reasons for that of course. First of all, they did that in the past. In WC3, prizemoney was often incredibly top-heavy. We are talking events with 50+ players and only the Top 3 got any prizemoney (hi ESWC again!). So teams filled in to a heavy degree. But in turn, the teamleagues that existed nearly didn't pay out enough money to fund said teams. We are talking finals that teams had to win to even cover their travelcosts. But Esport was brand new and a lot of sponsors were ready to pump in the money to finance teams like MYM and 4Kings. And then 2008 happened and a lot of companies cut their fundings. And the WC3-moneybubble bursted, with an incredible shutdown of teams.
For SC2, teams and organisations that survived tried to be healthier. But the money they didn't pay anymore needed to come from somewhere and that were tournaments. Proleague of course didn't have any of these problems. For one, being entirely offline and very popular in Korea, I assume Proleague generated quite the revenue. And then all teams were owned by the big korean Groups, who had a PR-based interest to invest. Be it SKT (I was shocked to learn that this does not stand for "South Korean Telecom" btw...anyone else?), the KT Group, Samsung...you get it.
With the focus of SC2 being even more on 1v1 competition, teams had a harder time generating revenue...not that it is easy to generate revenue in Esports anyway. So it would be suicide for the scene to put all the "develop talent"-duties on teams who can't really afford that.
I'm sure I've missed some of your points, but again, this is already taking too long in the heat. So I hope I covered the important things.
Quick Response Because I feel like I was getting long winded.
1. Prize money distribution was still a joke even if they were a major contributor to the GSL, the best 30 or 40 or 50 players in the world were sharing the same split as WCS events where maybe combined there were 2 top 20 players or better? Maybe those numbers aren't totally accurate, but the point stands.
2. Those WCS events while having an equal portion of the Blizzard funds ALSO gave equal points towards outside the tournament structure events be it through invites OR WCS points. So while the 20th place Korean is facing harder players, earning the same, and getting no points. There is money given to the 20th player facing nobodies for WCS EU. And the WCS EU #1 player and #2 player were farming points to seed them into events on top of that earning them even more money.
3. None of my post was to say that Afreeca or GSL or GOM were run perfectly while I don't really think you made that claim, I just don't want that confused for anyone reading. But they certainly IMO weren't the biggest fuck ups.
4. I also indicated that Blizzard in part killed TO's. It wasn't just the franchising, it was securing their own events that ran through any attempt to hold your own. It was the attempt at killing Broodwar a scene they had no part in making. And while you said they wanted to make it worldwide, better companies putting out a better product already had done that. Sure in name some of them still exist, and blizzard wasn't the only portion of their downfall, but blizzard basically leeched off the success built by others, came in, overrode their existence, and the SC2 scene has decayed ever since the last games release. I'm not sure the CS2 and SC2 tourmanet scene can fully be compared, though I am glad valve is getting rid of the partnership program, but to be very honest, nothing is going to change. The teams who were serious about CS2 were buying the players and partnerships because that is what they wanted to do.
5. Wild-West. I can see that a tiny bit, but at launch this wasn't WAR3, this was MLG, Dreamhack, ESL, IEM GOMTV. And IIRC SC2 had PLENTY of running events that had issues with payments even while being liscensed by blizzard. The thing was there were so many events, why would you mostly ever even bother going to a unknown entity, when the next day or week there was a real event coming up. Now as for prizepool and distribution of money, this should have been solved forever ago, even an org like Blizzard who was hands off in esports should have demanded to collect all monies dedicated to a prize pool before an event. I think they can fuck right off with their liscense fee as they should only benefit as much as they put into esports. In fact they should probably have to pay events for using their game.
6. The point might not have been as linier when comparing NBA to SC2. But for argument sake I did acknowlege other basketball leagues exist, but their money is far lower, which is accurate. And while no entity holds the rights to basketball the sport, the best players, playing the best other players, get paid more in the big league. The same applies to soccer players. Meanwhile in terms of SC2, it was drastically skewed to being nearly equal everywhere, but also extrodinarily benfitial to be in WCS NA/EU due to the points and invites to other events. And nobody is saying that others shouldn't have a career, I'm just not sure you should be supported at the cost of a better scene and better talent. Honestly kind of on point to NBA/WNBA and how the NBA funds the WNBA's existence. They can live, but until they have a product or ability that is better they haven't earned more. Meanwhile the lesser scenes IMO might have earned a TINY bit less financially but had massive benefits not only in opposition faced, but in easy WCS points and event invites.
7. I don't really care about region lock what so ever. It wouldn't have mattered if the money was where it was supposed to be. Nobody is moving from Korea to NA or EU to farm that WCS event if the 1st place WCS EU was 25th place's prize pool for GSL, and they recived no points for other events. If they were content with that, so be it, good for them, but I don't think you would have even had to address it at that point.
8. You say the the goal was global and what not. And to not replace the OSL/MSl/GSL proleague etc or what not. They rode the twitch/esports boom up, built off the grass roots of those entities. They froze those same entities out and creates a somewhat diverse system. But did nothing to assist in the bubble pop, and have destroyed all of their esports leagues. And while we might have some niche diversity worldwide, we'd still have that without Blizzard's existence because of twich, and if they had never frozen out those other events or money grabbed them, there would still be a foreign scene. So now we have a pretty weak scene, heavily diluted, with far less than there was before all of this even happened. Maybe not far less, but inflation etc.
9. While I'm thinking of it honestly by now it is too bad there isn't a global entity for all of esports that holds the money for prize pools. It could be such a simple thing, but it would probably take too much coordination to get started.
10. Teams. CS2 teams fund themselves without any support outside of their own deals. COD teams do as well. SCBWs teams funded themselves. Salaries varied, demand varied. But they managed to do it on their own. I'm not sure if I do or don't put any blame on Blizzard, but also a lot of it has to do with SC2 not being a team game. Also some of it had to do with teams being weirdly competitive in signing talent and breaking the bank. As for the BW teams I think that was a weird entity/time period. Almost no salaries, proleague was massive, also even if a team itself wasn't directly profitable it was a marketing expense and perhaps that exposure alone was justification. The evolution and changing of everything not just limited to teams means there isn't always just one thing to look at and I think specifically teams and SC2 is perhaps a bit too complex for anyone to ever understand.
I will try to keep it quick aswell:
1. Prize money was where the viewership was and where Blizzard saw the opportunities to grow. Was that completly fair? No, but that wasn't the goal. Blizzard idea also wasn't wrong as proven by Riot: They essentially do the same, even though the Korean LCK is atleast at the top much stronger than the EU LEC. But you have a global playerbase, global opportunities to join the pro-scenes and therefore also global viewership with lots of "local heroes".
2. The entire world had to share for some time the same amount of BlizzCon-Slots than Korea. Korean Topdogs also dominated every global qualifier. We really don't need to pity the korean scene at these times...
3. I mean, eventually it was GSL/GOM/Afreeca who run it into the ground, so yeah, feels like they fucked that up big time?
4. Literally every developer did that. Riot started out with cooperations with ESL, Counterstrike was run by so many different orgs etc. And now, every developer dictates the rule of their games, the entire economy and scene. Some cooperate with others, some just do it themselves.
5. The entire thing got massively better with Blizzards envolvement. Sure, there were still hiccups (still are today), but it got SO much better for everyone involved. I also don't understand how you don't want Blizzard involved, but at the same time they "should have collected the money" for each event? That feels contradictory... And paying them to run their game? That's not only a weird idea on a general basis, but they literally put millions of dollars into the game, essentially paying ESL and GSL to run their game?
6. As I said before: You can cut the payment of a NBA player many times for each individual national league before you reach a salary that the player can't live from anymore. How much money can you take from the GSL prizemoney before a player can't live from that?
7. "Region-lock would have been okay if the Money was where it was supposed to be" - it was. And it is honestly a weird take to think Korea just had the natural rights to be the center of SC2. What if Blizzard had actually followed your train of thought? Their own Proleague, their own Starleague...but in the US. Basically like the Overwatch League. All Koreans would have needed to come over and play? Would have that been fine for you? All the money at one point, that point just happened to be not Korea?
8. Of course Blizzard hoped that BroodWar "dies". Blizzard actively killed WC3 for SC2. Because they released their new game and hoped it would be the next big thing. So of course they wanted BroodWar gone...not that there was much BroodWar to kill outside of Korea. Same as Valve killed 1.6 and Source with Global Offensive...why would you compete with yourself? And sure, Blizzard was riding the Twitch-Hype...multiple times btw, I sometimes feel Hearthstone invented the "modern streamer". But that alone didn't guarantee the success of the game. Blizzard invested heavily, even pre-WCS. But sure, maybe things could have gone better without WCS...could have gone a lot worse aswell. Remember that GSL got its massive prizepool also from Blizzard. Maybe without Blizzard-intervention at all, there is no GSL. They run two seasons and fail miserably, while Kespa has no interest to switch to a new game. So there is no incentive to play SC2 in Korea and the game is gone from there, with maybe players like Mvp trying to make it outside of Korea. That is, in my opinion, a completly realistic scenario.
9. And what would that change? You can't even get all big team spors into one room, why would it work with gaming? EWC Foundation will surely try, but Valve, Blizzard and especially Riot are far too stubborn for that. What we need in Esports is very hands-on developers. I know not everyone likes it, but I will always defend that Riot created the perfect esports scene for their game.
10. Teams in CS2 are not profitable. Most orgs literally bankrupt themselves, needing constant input of cash from the outside. Even ESL burns through massive amounts of cash each year. Riot recently adressed this problem for LoL and tried to push for more sustainability, opening more revenue options for themselves and the teams. But in general, Esports is still sadly a business in constant need of investment.
It feels like you put a lot of blame on Blizzard, while simultaneously ignoring all the work they have done for the game. And while you might hate Blizzard for their investments into the foreign scene instead of spending every dim on Korea, eventually that was the right call, as the korean scene was far too small to support a potentially global success like SC2. And if anything, the korean scene might be thankful for the money sunk into GSL instead of Blizzard just saying "well, if you want to play, just move to Europe, there are the viewers anyway."
1. Was it really based off viewership? I mean we don't even have GOM numbers right? As for growing I get that, but a minimal investment in those scenes keeping them operating and viable was what was needed. I wasn't suggesting eliminating all funding. I just don't think that #1 EU WCS should receive anywhere near the support as #1 GSL winner. See and that would still be unfair, but perfectly fine, and I mean unfair because EU I'm not sure deserved even that much. As for the "growing" they were trying to do, honestly the WCS effort I don't think had much to do with it, people were hungry regardless for anything SC2 related. Just look at the weekend events. I do get trying to be universal, in some regard, but not at the cost of better teams/players getting far less than people simply because they live in an easier location to farm.
2. As for the entire world sharing the same slots to Blizzcon I still think that was a shame too and not for the foreign side of things, they got far more all things considered. At the end of the day if you're hosting a competition I see room for having avenues all over, but not that extreme. You should have the best of the best HEAVILY at any event especially if it is invite only. The only question to ask is were there better players sitting at home than the ones that got a free pass while playing in a weaker scene and collecting free prize money. The answer to that is for sure yes. Maybe a ranking system should have been put in place to determine a bit of it.
3. Not entirely sure about who ran what into the ground. I know that blizzard's limitations weren't a joke. But GSL/GOM/Afreeca weren't the leaders of events in Korea until Blizzard started favoring them. Then with the killing of SCBW at the time it eliminated their viability. And with the general interest dwindling down and them causing unreparable harm to the BW scene what was really left? Nobody else was there to support the otherside, meanwhile if OSL/MSL/Proleague/BW still existed there might be some more general interest in SC2 to this day.
4. You are right a ton of people took over to make things more organized. Meanwhile those companies are directly funding the events, have pay requirements for players, and haven't backed out of their scenes. Blizzard came to leech off the success of them, take over, charge them money, killed off competition, and then ran away. There is a big difference IMO between the two. And SC2 isn't the only Acti-Blizz title that is suffering massively due to their own stupidity.
5. I don't want Blizzard involved with managing events or leeching off them. I don't think that the only fee to running an event is that Blizzard holds the prize pool is a massive ask. Though again later on I talked about a separate entity. Either way would have been fine. But Blizzard in control of anything esports related was bound to go this way.
6. I don't know is every single Code S player at the time able to fund their existence from their full time job, while hobbyists can collect that same cash in other supported events globally? Should I be able to walk onto a pickup game at the park and earn the same money as an EU league player? There are retirements and game switchers and streamers who backed off or sacraficed their competitive ability due to finances who were better than those who were getting the bag in the other circuts.
7. CS best players are EU, main events and organization surround EU. SCBW best players are KOR main events in KOR. COD best players NA (usually) main events in NA. SC2 best players in KOR mainly, but hey let's be the weird one and make this game super global. And it isn't about some sort of natual right they had the players and the infastructure already there.
8. Valve didn't kill 1.5 with source. Nor either with CSGO as events were still allowed to run on the previous titles. Eventually when GO cleaned up tournaments/money/players all volunatarily moved to GO. This of course didn't happen with CS2 as they did kill off GO in that you simply cannot play it. And one would argue that the transition made to GO went more smoothly than to CS2 because nobody was rushed and it gave time for them to update the game. As to competition for the starcraft series, why remaster the game you tried to kill a few years previously lol? And who says SC2 wouldn't have been better even with BW around? We won't know because blizzard again had to step in. Sure you are right maybe there isn't a GSL without Blizzard, perhaps there is OSL/MSL/Starleage for SC2. We don't know b/c Blizzard killed those too. Which killed the remaining teams which were trying to stay alive. All in order to ride the hype of work everyone else put in, leech off that success, just to bail out, leaving a fairly weak scene. It actually isn't as bad as I thought it was, but still a very dead worldwide game now. Dead probably isn't the right term, but completely decimated perhaps? Just like they did with BW and OWL and CDL. See because those entities all existed for years before Blizzard even thought about esports without any Blizzard funding what so ever.
9. That someone would have the prize pool ahead of time and less schenanigans. They could also state before an event happens if they have the money or not. So you could still choose to go, but I bet a lot of people would skip it. You're talking about big companies when you're talking about valve/blizzard/riot. I'm not talking about their funds because they pay and they could easiyl be sued. I'm talking about if JoeShmo SC2 tournament wants to advertise a 2000 prize pool tournament that entity would hold that cash. It didn't HAVE to be a 4th party (?) it could have just as well been Blizzard who said you must have the prize pool up front or valve or whoever. But then at least a known entity is on the hook for it.
10. Profitibility in CS2 depends on a wide factor. There are certainly some profitable ones. Though you are right some TOs and Orgs are betting on the future or dilution to make ends meet. But those are rolling dice that they chose to pick up. Meanwhile there are plenty of successful cases, honestly the best being the Korean market as their funding was essentially a marketing campaign year after year. So teams weren't diluting themselves or losing control or gambling, so much as they were a tool for companies to use to advertise, and the product was attached to SC players. Outside of that I'm not sure anyone did as great, but so many fell into the bubble trap.
I do put most of all of the blame on Blizzard for sure. I'm not neglecting some efforts were made, but it was nothing crazy, nor impressive, and was leeching in nature. Their entire esports portfolio since their involvement has largely collapsed while others are maintaining just fine. LOL/Valorant? Dota2/CS? And they didn't have to kill off anything to fake their success. So you can't blame the collapse solely on the bubble as they all existed in that same bubble. It feels like you think that Blizzard did something that others weren't already doing and had good intentions, when in reality they just wanted to leech money off of everyone, which is why Acti Blizzard titles are struggling or dying or dead while the rest are doing fine.
Won't answer to each point, since essentially they start to meddle a bit.
1. Prizepool distribution
We won't find a common point here. To get your point across, you would have needed to half if not more the prizepool of EU and AM, which essentially stops it being worth for a larger playerbase. Which would in return just led to the BW-Korea-Circlejerk that barely anyone cared about globally.
2. Blizzard "run away"
Blizzard paid SC2 Esports for ten+ years. TEN YEARS. And to a point when SC2 long stopped being profitable. Blizzard run away from Heroes of the Storm, that is true. But SC2? No, just no. Calling that "they leeched off and then left" is false and honestly disrespectful.
3. Blizzard and BroodWar
Blizzard didn't kill OSL/MSL/OPL. They weren't forbidden to run. The entire conflicht was about who is in charge of Starcraft. Kespa wanted to keep their position, so they refused SC2 in the beginning. But eventually, the change to the new game had to be made. It's not like BroodWar was doing amazingly well either. In the two seasons prior to the switch to SC2, Proleague lost four teams. And it is not like Proleague suddenly returned with SC:R. Blizzard stopped caring for BroodWar long ago, then they stopped caring for WC3, just putting all efforts into SC2. And only after SC2 stopped being a relevant project SC:R got done. And Blizzard even paid for that game with some tournaments, including their own Starleague in Korea.
Again, I'm really not sure what you wanted here? Apparently that Blizzard goes to Kespa/OGN, gives them all the money in the world and says "don't worry, the global playerbase will surely catch up and soon play in Proleague aswell"? Why would they do that if the goal is to create a global enviroment? OGN didn't care at all about the global playerbase, why would they? They are literally Korea-only.
4. Korea should be the focus.
You are mistaken if you think tournaments are just hosted were the highest level of skill is. CS2 is spread out all across the world, the next Major will be in Shanghai, even though literally no Chinese team (and barely any Asian team) will have a shot at the title. Europe usually gets the most qualifying spots, but the entire game tries to present itself globally. Riot is present in all regions, but yet again, Worlds for example wander between regions. The Overwatch League was dominated by korean players, but the League itself got based in the US. With CoD you are correct, but there is the snatch: CoD is mostly big in the US, in terms of Esports it isn't particularly interesting in Europe. So it doesn't make any sense to host games here. You host your tournament where it makes the most economical sense. And for SC2, Korea isn't particularly a hotspot. In the end, it is easier to get ten korean players to a hyping arena in Dallas than the Dallas-crowd to Seoul.
You can see that in traditional sports aswell. For example, the NFL is currently trying to expand to Europe, especially Germany. Hosting multiple games per season in german football/soccer stadiums. Are they doing that because the NFL wants to harness the great potential of germanys American Football players? No, but in the last ten years, the Super Bowl has become kind of a trend here and people get more interested in American Football...so the NFL tries to capitalize on that. And while it is easier said than done...that would have probably been something the GSL and Proleague needed to be doing. Have one of three GSL finals per year in America and Europe (I think they one-time had GSL Finals at BlizzCon or something like that?).
5. CS2 teams are profitable
They are in fact not. They all are costing off sticker-money. The T3 scene is collapsing with ESL pulling out of national events and now with Valves changes towards the Major qualification, even more teams are disbanding. One of the best teams in the world (FaZe) just recently had to be sold, since the entire org was down in the shits and needed fresh cash.
BW Proleague worked because, as you said, it was marketing towards the home-market. But how many of the Proleague-sponsors are even operating outside of Korea? I can only really think of Samsung. It was cool and amazing, but it was also only working in a niche. A niche you can't really build your new big game around.
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
Sorry, but really, what are you talking about?
First of all: Yes, it is completly natural to take away money from the top and award it to the bottom. Because if you only run top-heavy competitions, everyone else will drop out. That principle is true on every level. Very basic example: Maybe tournaments should only give out money to the winner? Because clearly that person worked and played harder than anyone else, so why should they also get money?
Answer for that is obvious: You need money to get into the career. Because most players who start out the game won't be Maru and win tournaments with 14. And they won't be Serral and dominate the world as soon as they go full-time. But how do you justify going (semi-)pro with 18-20 after school? You justify it by getting money. You either get money because there are competitions for your "entry level" or because teams like in Proleague pay you. If you don't do that, one of two things happen: 1)Players go to college and don't play fulltime, because they need a career. But that naturally translates in worth results. 2)Players just don't go pro at all.
In many sports, there are lower leagues, lower tournaments. These tournaments usually don't pay for themselves, but are financed by the S-Tier competition pumping in money. That is money "taken away" from better players, but it is necessary to ensure that people can get into the sports. This is especially important in SC2, since there is no guarantee that there will be any money. Last year for example there was a realistic chance that neither GSL nor EPT would continue in 2024.
The region-lock was necessary to develop the talent in the world and let it get caught up. Which was also paying tribute to the fact that the key-audience is not in Korea. Now about "Blizzard messed up *hurrdurr*" --> No, they didn't? Atleast not in the way you think. They awarded money towards their own playing system, but didn't go into competition with Afreeca and GSL. And yet they paid a large sum of GSL prizepool. Even though Afreeca/GSL themselves did an extremly shitty job utilizing their actual audience, aka. foreign watchers. That is something they apparently only noticed last year. And it's not like Koreans didn't still get hefty perks compared to the rest of the world (e.g. eight BlizzCon slots vs. eight for the entire world). That was a clear sign to respect the tremendously strong playerbase in Korea.
If the region-lock wasn't a thing, I'm pretty sure the korean scene would look the same as it does today, maybe even worse. But the entire rest of the world would definetly look tremendously worse. We might not even have gotten a Serral and a Reynor and a Clem. But without these top-dogs, ESL would probably also not invest anymore. Why invest in a game that isn't remotely present in your key-audience?
It is okay to award some financial incentive towards the prospect/academy/lower level talent. It is not good to reward the lowest tiers of your sport equally to the highest tier. It takes money out of the pockets of those who are putting in the real work and donating it to the average or hobbyist. Especially in a system where you're essentially locked into not being able to compete for that big ticket due to the restrictions on WCS long term events. I'm not saying money should only go to the winner, what I'm saying it that #20 KOR had more invested, more time spent, and was a better player than #20 EU or NA, but received the same payout.
How do you justify at that point going semi-pro or pro? Well hopefully you have a team supporting you, as well as a collection of smaller event wins that could easily do it. My point wasn't that #1 through #4 EU makes NO money, but that the scale should not be equal, especially when the events restrict individuals from playing in all of them. Meanwhile a weekend EU cup with a 3000 dollar first place that nobody else would bother considering would be free if you were that good or you'd be fine with the 1500 dollar 2nd palce. Either way you're still funding your pro career.
You are right in many sports there are lower leagues and lower events. There were in SC as well. What there isn't is 3 separate NBA leagues all paying the same as the NA NBA league, where funds by the NBA top org are being divvied up equally amongst all scenes equally, so playing in EU against lesser talents is just as financially profitable as playing against the best, and is heavily supported by the numbers and revenue generated by the best players.
As for blizzard messing up everything. Look no further than the state of all the esports under that umbrella lol. And no that is a separate issue beyond just the money siphon from SC2 into weaker scenes. It was the restrictions places on TO's. It was the money demanded from running outside events. And whatever funds you think were donated to the GSL is laughable considering their talent was what generated the revenue of most events lol. You are right the event runners who in part ran events for BW did struggle in SC2 when blizzard took over. Crazy how before that they were doing just fine in a game that Blizzard hadn't thought about the competitive atmosphere what so ever.
You are right region lock wasn't what I was solely hinting at though it was a part. If you have months long events in 3 separate regions, nobody can compete for that prize pool in all 3. And honestly I think we still would have got those same players you mentioned, but they wouldn't have been receiving the money that should have been in the top system, nor free seeding into events through playing lesser talent. Does it change everything or anything? Don't know, but to claim those paths were anywhere near equal is foolish.
On June 26 2024 08:13 WombaT wrote:
On June 26 2024 06:53 NoobSkills wrote:
On June 25 2024 19:00 WombaT wrote:
On June 25 2024 13:54 NoobSkills wrote: [quote]
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.
I get why the WCS and talent all over the world thing was nice. But it was also right equal money, taken away from the peak of competition to fund lower events no? But can't change the past, not sure I would even, but I'm also not sure that financial issues didn't stop some players in Korea, where the competition was in fact harder.
You are right though, he had weaker practice in those competitions, and he may have the best vKorean record in the game. But if he were held to the same standard, as those Koreans would that be true? If he had to farm his WCS points while facing off against individuals who has a week+ to practice for specifically him, could he have made it to those events in the first place? The answer is probably, but would it have been all of them? I don't think so. But you are right he did have the upper level talent to be at those big events, but so did many of those who were playing in the Korean scene who didn't make the cut due to numbers they had to get through in a harder competition.
In your NBA judgement how is that person getting there and making themselves into a top 5? Did he get to play against Santa's Elfs in the north poll league every year and get free seeding into the NBA finals? Skipping out on the regular season and the playoffs?
I think Blizzard dropped the ball with all of esports and butchered every single thing possible, but that has nothing to do with WCS or serral really. That their project, limitations, requirements not only for Korea, but also the rest of the world destroyed Blizzard esports. Yes, you do want a competitive atmosphere for building up talent. But creating top tier events with mandatory long time period of play, with a bunch of money all spread out doing that? Is paying the #20 guy in EU or NA the same money as the #20 KOR really fair? Did they all play just as hard? In other esports there are side events smaller events for competition until you're ready to be a big dog. Blizzard through amateurs in to T1 paying events and basically time locked others from having a chance because they all ran at the same time.
I didn’t like the WCS system when it wasn’t region locked, you still had the issue of Koreans just showing up for those tournaments and not really developing the regions.
I was always much more in favour of a soft lock, and to this day. If a player (Polt being a great example) is making his life in another region, they’ll be playing consistently with players there and (hopefully) raising the level overall. Drop the prize pool versus Korea too by all means
One of many Blizz mistakes IMO, I prefer that by far to a hard region lock, and I think the window to really salvage Kr has been passed
That said I mean Kespa made a ton of mistakes, the scene when they arrived was as fragmented as it ever was and they never really tailored their product to where the viewership was.
Region lock or running 3 separate big leagues with the same heavily funded prize pool. Either way you were taking from people who had SC2 as their full time job and were the best, to fund the existence of hobbyists. This isn't about the top of the top, serral might be serral in either system or maybe he has a bit less because he chose to stay in the weaker area. Or maybe he would have had to go to korea and actually faced the gauntlet. But the #8 or #15 WCS NA or EU player were they really deserving of that inflated money? Also to that same point you'd still have to take some away from the top as well. You could still foster a scene of development without giving the minor league the same cash injection as those who are on the top.
And I'm cool with the locks or whatever I guess, but polt doesn't choose EU if it wasn't freer than KOR and the ratio of returns higher. Meanwhile if the distribution was properly given toward the best scene, would polt have moved? This isn't saying eliminate all funding for WCS abroad, but that it didn't deserve anywhere near the same consideration as KOR. And by the way this wasn't just in terms of money, but invites and WCS points that you got to benefit off of over other players who had to face the gauntlet every single event.
Blizzard's butchering of their esports titles and attempts to control the scene are far too numerous and not limited to just SC2. They attempted to be the big dogs while butchering pretty much everything at the time. But the company has been in the toilet for so long that would be far too much to talk about in this thread. I do agree that KESPA made plenty of mistakes and overstepped in many ways as well. But Blizzard has killed or vastly limited the success of so many entities in their attempt to exist in esports, meanwhile Blizzard games in esports thrived without Blizzard interference for quite some time.
I was thinking about answering to all points in detail, but it's just too hot here, I'm sorry. So I will give general answers and hope to cover everything.
"The money Blizzard put into GSL was laughable"
When Blizzard stopped the funding for SC2 at the end of 2022, the Prizepool between GSL seasons dropped from 123K to 52K, essentially being halved. And remember that already includes crowdfunding for GSL from '23 forward. So you *might* want to reconsider the statement that Blizzard wasn't paying anything. Pirzepools for ESL events btw dropped only about 25%. So either ESL put in a lot more money into the game than Afreeca or Blizzard didn't fund ESL as heavy as GSL.
"The Blizzard licensing killed TOs"
I will admit, I wasn't around in the first year or something like that for SC2. Back then I was admin/caster for WC3CL and was a bit anti-SC2 and anti-change. Our league was thinking about putting up a second league for SC2 though right from the get-go and the licensing was already a topic. So I'm almost certain that the fact that Blizzard wanted to run the show to a degree was the plan from release on. Either way, this means Blizzard did not kill any TOs that were already running SC2 competitions - they all operated under that label. That was at the time rather new. Pre-2010, no game developer really invested anything into Esports. It was all about ESL, DreamHack, ESWC, WCG and so on...private companies, usually barely in communication with the developer at all. Today, every big developer controls their Esport. Riot started it together with Blizzard (or Blizzard was even first?), but it is the industry standard by now. Valve for example did a string of decisions recently regarding CS2, for example they decided that partnership-depending tournaments were forbidden from 2025 onwards. And you know what? ESL and BLAST both had to follow and accept that decision. That basically really is like the FIBA saying "no, Franchising is banned now" and the NBA goes "haha, okay boss, will do!". Anyway, back to Blizzard. They wanted to run the show for multiple reasons. And they clearly envisioned SC2 as a global Esports. They didn't look towards BroodWar, which was extremly bad in that regard. They looked towards WC3. And still, at the start, they let it run its course, with multiple tournament organizers doing their things. A lot of them probably vanishing because Esports isn't a particularly suistainable business and the Financial Crisis of 2014. WCS got introduced a good chunk later and remember, the first one was this national into regional into global system that was actually really cool, but not particularly thought-through yet. Only after that developed the WCS-system.
Now, you might think and say the Licensing-Rules were greedy or whatever. Might be. But there is another aspect of it. Grubby recently talked about this in a video, I think it was about "What's good an bad in SC2?". And one thing he said was that Blizzard essentially ended the Wild-West regarding Esports-Events. Please don't quote me on it, but I think Grubby mentioned that he like almost missed like 25% and up to 50% of the prizepool he technically earned in WC3, because TOs wouldn't pay him out. He said "you would just show up to an event an play and simply would not get paid at all". Either because TOs really just scammed the players or because they went bankrupt. ESWC for example had a rule in their player contract that they only had to payout prizemoney in a timespan of two years. And I think ESL also wasn't particularly fast in paying out back in the day. Goody protested that once, I think he mentioned a delay of six to nine month?
With the Licensing and Blizzard taking over, that stopped. Now players would not only get their money, but they would get it in a reasonable timeframe. I'm pretty sure if you ask a player if he or she prefers to either play ten events for ten different TOs or three events for the same but get paid all three events guaranteed...I'm pretty certain there is a clear favorite here.
"Money shouldn't be taken from the top and awarded to lesser regions to such a degree"
You need to if you want a global playing field to entertain a global viewership. You bring up the NBA: You are forgetting something here though. The NBA isn't the only basketball-league in the world. It's of course the largest, most important and financially strongest, zero doubt about that. But there are basketball leagues all around the world, especially in Europe. So if you are an aspiring basketball player in Germany, you don't need to hope to get a scholarship for an american College and then either go into the NBA or stop playing Basketball. You can make a career playing Basketball in Germany. Then maybe in Europe. And eventually, you might get to play in the NBA. In return, lots of americans aren't starved out of Basketball if they don't make it into the NBA, but they can go abroad. Again, in Germany, I know for a fact that every team in the third highest Basketball league, which is basically the first one that plays somewhat professional, each team has usually two or three US-players. Now you might say "aha, so region lock is bad, see!", but there is a region-lock. Teams are only allowed that many non-EU-players. Exactly to help develop own talent and protect the local players.
This excourse is an example of course. But the think is, that Esport doesn't work like that exactly. For one, money isn't as big as it is in Basketball, so you can't particularly lower the money per region over and over before there is no money at all. But SC2, like all Esports, has other differences to regular sport aswell. It is usually less "grassroots" and more top-heavy and internationally oriented. There is no "natural distribution" of money in SC2, the money is were Blizzard puts it (atleast in the past, now there is actual natural distribution, with ESL pumping money into it while the korean scene struggles). And as I said before: The goal wasn't to recreate Proleague and OSL/MSL. The goal was to recreate the global success of WC3, with a global playerbase. And it somewhat worked. We have an international viewership and lots of foreigner players. Which I'm certain we wouldn't have if Blizzards entire plan would have been "here Kespa, take our money and do what you want, the rest of the world will git gud on their own and eventually join Proleague LUL."
"There should be smaller tournaments and also teams can provide the money players need"
There always have been regional, smaller tournaments. Often though they didn't pay out enough money, which makes sense. With the rise of Twitch and the heavy promotion of international tournaments, local TOs struggled to provide a product that could earn money.
And as for teams...well, they simply can't provide said money. Easy as that. There are reasons for that of course. First of all, they did that in the past. In WC3, prizemoney was often incredibly top-heavy. We are talking events with 50+ players and only the Top 3 got any prizemoney (hi ESWC again!). So teams filled in to a heavy degree. But in turn, the teamleagues that existed nearly didn't pay out enough money to fund said teams. We are talking finals that teams had to win to even cover their travelcosts. But Esport was brand new and a lot of sponsors were ready to pump in the money to finance teams like MYM and 4Kings. And then 2008 happened and a lot of companies cut their fundings. And the WC3-moneybubble bursted, with an incredible shutdown of teams.
For SC2, teams and organisations that survived tried to be healthier. But the money they didn't pay anymore needed to come from somewhere and that were tournaments. Proleague of course didn't have any of these problems. For one, being entirely offline and very popular in Korea, I assume Proleague generated quite the revenue. And then all teams were owned by the big korean Groups, who had a PR-based interest to invest. Be it SKT (I was shocked to learn that this does not stand for "South Korean Telecom" btw...anyone else?), the KT Group, Samsung...you get it.
With the focus of SC2 being even more on 1v1 competition, teams had a harder time generating revenue...not that it is easy to generate revenue in Esports anyway. So it would be suicide for the scene to put all the "develop talent"-duties on teams who can't really afford that.
I'm sure I've missed some of your points, but again, this is already taking too long in the heat. So I hope I covered the important things.
Quick Response Because I feel like I was getting long winded.
1. Prize money distribution was still a joke even if they were a major contributor to the GSL, the best 30 or 40 or 50 players in the world were sharing the same split as WCS events where maybe combined there were 2 top 20 players or better? Maybe those numbers aren't totally accurate, but the point stands.
2. Those WCS events while having an equal portion of the Blizzard funds ALSO gave equal points towards outside the tournament structure events be it through invites OR WCS points. So while the 20th place Korean is facing harder players, earning the same, and getting no points. There is money given to the 20th player facing nobodies for WCS EU. And the WCS EU #1 player and #2 player were farming points to seed them into events on top of that earning them even more money.
3. None of my post was to say that Afreeca or GSL or GOM were run perfectly while I don't really think you made that claim, I just don't want that confused for anyone reading. But they certainly IMO weren't the biggest fuck ups.
4. I also indicated that Blizzard in part killed TO's. It wasn't just the franchising, it was securing their own events that ran through any attempt to hold your own. It was the attempt at killing Broodwar a scene they had no part in making. And while you said they wanted to make it worldwide, better companies putting out a better product already had done that. Sure in name some of them still exist, and blizzard wasn't the only portion of their downfall, but blizzard basically leeched off the success built by others, came in, overrode their existence, and the SC2 scene has decayed ever since the last games release. I'm not sure the CS2 and SC2 tourmanet scene can fully be compared, though I am glad valve is getting rid of the partnership program, but to be very honest, nothing is going to change. The teams who were serious about CS2 were buying the players and partnerships because that is what they wanted to do.
5. Wild-West. I can see that a tiny bit, but at launch this wasn't WAR3, this was MLG, Dreamhack, ESL, IEM GOMTV. And IIRC SC2 had PLENTY of running events that had issues with payments even while being liscensed by blizzard. The thing was there were so many events, why would you mostly ever even bother going to a unknown entity, when the next day or week there was a real event coming up. Now as for prizepool and distribution of money, this should have been solved forever ago, even an org like Blizzard who was hands off in esports should have demanded to collect all monies dedicated to a prize pool before an event. I think they can fuck right off with their liscense fee as they should only benefit as much as they put into esports. In fact they should probably have to pay events for using their game.
6. The point might not have been as linier when comparing NBA to SC2. But for argument sake I did acknowlege other basketball leagues exist, but their money is far lower, which is accurate. And while no entity holds the rights to basketball the sport, the best players, playing the best other players, get paid more in the big league. The same applies to soccer players. Meanwhile in terms of SC2, it was drastically skewed to being nearly equal everywhere, but also extrodinarily benfitial to be in WCS NA/EU due to the points and invites to other events. And nobody is saying that others shouldn't have a career, I'm just not sure you should be supported at the cost of a better scene and better talent. Honestly kind of on point to NBA/WNBA and how the NBA funds the WNBA's existence. They can live, but until they have a product or ability that is better they haven't earned more. Meanwhile the lesser scenes IMO might have earned a TINY bit less financially but had massive benefits not only in opposition faced, but in easy WCS points and event invites.
7. I don't really care about region lock what so ever. It wouldn't have mattered if the money was where it was supposed to be. Nobody is moving from Korea to NA or EU to farm that WCS event if the 1st place WCS EU was 25th place's prize pool for GSL, and they recived no points for other events. If they were content with that, so be it, good for them, but I don't think you would have even had to address it at that point.
8. You say the the goal was global and what not. And to not replace the OSL/MSl/GSL proleague etc or what not. They rode the twitch/esports boom up, built off the grass roots of those entities. They froze those same entities out and creates a somewhat diverse system. But did nothing to assist in the bubble pop, and have destroyed all of their esports leagues. And while we might have some niche diversity worldwide, we'd still have that without Blizzard's existence because of twich, and if they had never frozen out those other events or money grabbed them, there would still be a foreign scene. So now we have a pretty weak scene, heavily diluted, with far less than there was before all of this even happened. Maybe not far less, but inflation etc.
9. While I'm thinking of it honestly by now it is too bad there isn't a global entity for all of esports that holds the money for prize pools. It could be such a simple thing, but it would probably take too much coordination to get started.
10. Teams. CS2 teams fund themselves without any support outside of their own deals. COD teams do as well. SCBWs teams funded themselves. Salaries varied, demand varied. But they managed to do it on their own. I'm not sure if I do or don't put any blame on Blizzard, but also a lot of it has to do with SC2 not being a team game. Also some of it had to do with teams being weirdly competitive in signing talent and breaking the bank. As for the BW teams I think that was a weird entity/time period. Almost no salaries, proleague was massive, also even if a team itself wasn't directly profitable it was a marketing expense and perhaps that exposure alone was justification. The evolution and changing of everything not just limited to teams means there isn't always just one thing to look at and I think specifically teams and SC2 is perhaps a bit too complex for anyone to ever understand.
I will try to keep it quick aswell:
1. Prize money was where the viewership was and where Blizzard saw the opportunities to grow. Was that completly fair? No, but that wasn't the goal. Blizzard idea also wasn't wrong as proven by Riot: They essentially do the same, even though the Korean LCK is atleast at the top much stronger than the EU LEC. But you have a global playerbase, global opportunities to join the pro-scenes and therefore also global viewership with lots of "local heroes".
2. The entire world had to share for some time the same amount of BlizzCon-Slots than Korea. Korean Topdogs also dominated every global qualifier. We really don't need to pity the korean scene at these times...
3. I mean, eventually it was GSL/GOM/Afreeca who run it into the ground, so yeah, feels like they fucked that up big time?
4. Literally every developer did that. Riot started out with cooperations with ESL, Counterstrike was run by so many different orgs etc. And now, every developer dictates the rule of their games, the entire economy and scene. Some cooperate with others, some just do it themselves.
5. The entire thing got massively better with Blizzards envolvement. Sure, there were still hiccups (still are today), but it got SO much better for everyone involved. I also don't understand how you don't want Blizzard involved, but at the same time they "should have collected the money" for each event? That feels contradictory... And paying them to run their game? That's not only a weird idea on a general basis, but they literally put millions of dollars into the game, essentially paying ESL and GSL to run their game?
6. As I said before: You can cut the payment of a NBA player many times for each individual national league before you reach a salary that the player can't live from anymore. How much money can you take from the GSL prizemoney before a player can't live from that?
7. "Region-lock would have been okay if the Money was where it was supposed to be" - it was. And it is honestly a weird take to think Korea just had the natural rights to be the center of SC2. What if Blizzard had actually followed your train of thought? Their own Proleague, their own Starleague...but in the US. Basically like the Overwatch League. All Koreans would have needed to come over and play? Would have that been fine for you? All the money at one point, that point just happened to be not Korea?
8. Of course Blizzard hoped that BroodWar "dies". Blizzard actively killed WC3 for SC2. Because they released their new game and hoped it would be the next big thing. So of course they wanted BroodWar gone...not that there was much BroodWar to kill outside of Korea. Same as Valve killed 1.6 and Source with Global Offensive...why would you compete with yourself? And sure, Blizzard was riding the Twitch-Hype...multiple times btw, I sometimes feel Hearthstone invented the "modern streamer". But that alone didn't guarantee the success of the game. Blizzard invested heavily, even pre-WCS. But sure, maybe things could have gone better without WCS...could have gone a lot worse aswell. Remember that GSL got its massive prizepool also from Blizzard. Maybe without Blizzard-intervention at all, there is no GSL. They run two seasons and fail miserably, while Kespa has no interest to switch to a new game. So there is no incentive to play SC2 in Korea and the game is gone from there, with maybe players like Mvp trying to make it outside of Korea. That is, in my opinion, a completly realistic scenario.
9. And what would that change? You can't even get all big team spors into one room, why would it work with gaming? EWC Foundation will surely try, but Valve, Blizzard and especially Riot are far too stubborn for that. What we need in Esports is very hands-on developers. I know not everyone likes it, but I will always defend that Riot created the perfect esports scene for their game.
10. Teams in CS2 are not profitable. Most orgs literally bankrupt themselves, needing constant input of cash from the outside. Even ESL burns through massive amounts of cash each year. Riot recently adressed this problem for LoL and tried to push for more sustainability, opening more revenue options for themselves and the teams. But in general, Esports is still sadly a business in constant need of investment.
It feels like you put a lot of blame on Blizzard, while simultaneously ignoring all the work they have done for the game. And while you might hate Blizzard for their investments into the foreign scene instead of spending every dim on Korea, eventually that was the right call, as the korean scene was far too small to support a potentially global success like SC2. And if anything, the korean scene might be thankful for the money sunk into GSL instead of Blizzard just saying "well, if you want to play, just move to Europe, there are the viewers anyway."
1. Was it really based off viewership? I mean we don't even have GOM numbers right? As for growing I get that, but a minimal investment in those scenes keeping them operating and viable was what was needed. I wasn't suggesting eliminating all funding. I just don't think that #1 EU WCS should receive anywhere near the support as #1 GSL winner. See and that would still be unfair, but perfectly fine, and I mean unfair because EU I'm not sure deserved even that much. As for the "growing" they were trying to do, honestly the WCS effort I don't think had much to do with it, people were hungry regardless for anything SC2 related. Just look at the weekend events. I do get trying to be universal, in some regard, but not at the cost of better teams/players getting far less than people simply because they live in an easier location to farm.
2. As for the entire world sharing the same slots to Blizzcon I still think that was a shame too and not for the foreign side of things, they got far more all things considered. At the end of the day if you're hosting a competition I see room for having avenues all over, but not that extreme. You should have the best of the best HEAVILY at any event especially if it is invite only. The only question to ask is were there better players sitting at home than the ones that got a free pass while playing in a weaker scene and collecting free prize money. The answer to that is for sure yes. Maybe a ranking system should have been put in place to determine a bit of it.
3. Not entirely sure about who ran what into the ground. I know that blizzard's limitations weren't a joke. But GSL/GOM/Afreeca weren't the leaders of events in Korea until Blizzard started favoring them. Then with the killing of SCBW at the time it eliminated their viability. And with the general interest dwindling down and them causing unreparable harm to the BW scene what was really left? Nobody else was there to support the otherside, meanwhile if OSL/MSL/Proleague/BW still existed there might be some more general interest in SC2 to this day.
4. You are right a ton of people took over to make things more organized. Meanwhile those companies are directly funding the events, have pay requirements for players, and haven't backed out of their scenes. Blizzard came to leech off the success of them, take over, charge them money, killed off competition, and then ran away. There is a big difference IMO between the two. And SC2 isn't the only Acti-Blizz title that is suffering massively due to their own stupidity.
5. I don't want Blizzard involved with managing events or leeching off them. I don't think that the only fee to running an event is that Blizzard holds the prize pool is a massive ask. Though again later on I talked about a separate entity. Either way would have been fine. But Blizzard in control of anything esports related was bound to go this way.
6. I don't know is every single Code S player at the time able to fund their existence from their full time job, while hobbyists can collect that same cash in other supported events globally? Should I be able to walk onto a pickup game at the park and earn the same money as an EU league player? There are retirements and game switchers and streamers who backed off or sacraficed their competitive ability due to finances who were better than those who were getting the bag in the other circuts.
7. CS best players are EU, main events and organization surround EU. SCBW best players are KOR main events in KOR. COD best players NA (usually) main events in NA. SC2 best players in KOR mainly, but hey let's be the weird one and make this game super global. And it isn't about some sort of natual right they had the players and the infastructure already there.
8. Valve didn't kill 1.5 with source. Nor either with CSGO as events were still allowed to run on the previous titles. Eventually when GO cleaned up tournaments/money/players all volunatarily moved to GO. This of course didn't happen with CS2 as they did kill off GO in that you simply cannot play it. And one would argue that the transition made to GO went more smoothly than to CS2 because nobody was rushed and it gave time for them to update the game. As to competition for the starcraft series, why remaster the game you tried to kill a few years previously lol? And who says SC2 wouldn't have been better even with BW around? We won't know because blizzard again had to step in. Sure you are right maybe there isn't a GSL without Blizzard, perhaps there is OSL/MSL/Starleage for SC2. We don't know b/c Blizzard killed those too. Which killed the remaining teams which were trying to stay alive. All in order to ride the hype of work everyone else put in, leech off that success, just to bail out, leaving a fairly weak scene. It actually isn't as bad as I thought it was, but still a very dead worldwide game now. Dead probably isn't the right term, but completely decimated perhaps? Just like they did with BW and OWL and CDL. See because those entities all existed for years before Blizzard even thought about esports without any Blizzard funding what so ever.
9. That someone would have the prize pool ahead of time and less schenanigans. They could also state before an event happens if they have the money or not. So you could still choose to go, but I bet a lot of people would skip it. You're talking about big companies when you're talking about valve/blizzard/riot. I'm not talking about their funds because they pay and they could easiyl be sued. I'm talking about if JoeShmo SC2 tournament wants to advertise a 2000 prize pool tournament that entity would hold that cash. It didn't HAVE to be a 4th party (?) it could have just as well been Blizzard who said you must have the prize pool up front or valve or whoever. But then at least a known entity is on the hook for it.
10. Profitibility in CS2 depends on a wide factor. There are certainly some profitable ones. Though you are right some TOs and Orgs are betting on the future or dilution to make ends meet. But those are rolling dice that they chose to pick up. Meanwhile there are plenty of successful cases, honestly the best being the Korean market as their funding was essentially a marketing campaign year after year. So teams weren't diluting themselves or losing control or gambling, so much as they were a tool for companies to use to advertise, and the product was attached to SC players. Outside of that I'm not sure anyone did as great, but so many fell into the bubble trap.
I do put most of all of the blame on Blizzard for sure. I'm not neglecting some efforts were made, but it was nothing crazy, nor impressive, and was leeching in nature. Their entire esports portfolio since their involvement has largely collapsed while others are maintaining just fine. LOL/Valorant? Dota2/CS? And they didn't have to kill off anything to fake their success. So you can't blame the collapse solely on the bubble as they all existed in that same bubble. It feels like you think that Blizzard did something that others weren't already doing and had good intentions, when in reality they just wanted to leech money off of everyone, which is why Acti Blizzard titles are struggling or dying or dead while the rest are doing fine.
Won't answer to each point, since essentially they start to meddle a bit.
1. Prizepool distribution
We won't find a common point here. To get your point across, you would have needed to half if not more the prizepool of EU and AM, which essentially stops it being worth for a larger playerbase. Which would in return just led to the BW-Korea-Circlejerk that barely anyone cared about globally.
2. Blizzard "run away"
Blizzard paid SC2 Esports for ten+ years. TEN YEARS. And to a point when SC2 long stopped being profitable. Blizzard run away from Heroes of the Storm, that is true. But SC2? No, just no. Calling that "they leeched off and then left" is false and honestly disrespectful.
3. Blizzard and BroodWar
Blizzard didn't kill OSL/MSL/OPL. They weren't forbidden to run. The entire conflicht was about who is in charge of Starcraft. Kespa wanted to keep their position, so they refused SC2 in the beginning. But eventually, the change to the new game had to be made. It's not like BroodWar was doing amazingly well either. In the two seasons prior to the switch to SC2, Proleague lost four teams. And it is not like Proleague suddenly returned with SC:R. Blizzard stopped caring for BroodWar long ago, then they stopped caring for WC3, just putting all efforts into SC2. And only after SC2 stopped being a relevant project SC:R got done. And Blizzard even paid for that game with some tournaments, including their own Starleague in Korea.
Again, I'm really not sure what you wanted here? Apparently that Blizzard goes to Kespa/OGN, gives them all the money in the world and says "don't worry, the global playerbase will surely catch up and soon play in Proleague aswell"? Why would they do that if the goal is to create a global enviroment? OGN didn't care at all about the global playerbase, why would they? They are literally Korea-only.
4. Korea should be the focus.
You are mistaken if you think tournaments are just hosted were the highest level of skill is. CS2 is spread out all across the world, the next Major will be in Shanghai, even though literally no Chinese team (and barely any Asian team) will have a shot at the title. Europe usually gets the most qualifying spots, but the entire game tries to present itself globally. Riot is present in all regions, but yet again, Worlds for example wander between regions. The Overwatch League was dominated by korean players, but the League itself got based in the US. With CoD you are correct, but there is the snatch: CoD is mostly big in the US, in terms of Esports it isn't particularly interesting in Europe. So it doesn't make any sense to host games here. You host your tournament where it makes the most economical sense. And for SC2, Korea isn't particularly a hotspot. In the end, it is easier to get ten korean players to a hyping arena in Dallas than the Dallas-crowd to Seoul.
You can see that in traditional sports aswell. For example, the NFL is currently trying to expand to Europe, especially Germany. Hosting multiple games per season in german football/soccer stadiums. Are they doing that because the NFL wants to harness the great potential of germanys American Football players? No, but in the last ten years, the Super Bowl has become kind of a trend here and people get more interested in American Football...so the NFL tries to capitalize on that. And while it is easier said than done...that would have probably been something the GSL and Proleague needed to be doing. Have one of three GSL finals per year in America and Europe (I think they one-time had GSL Finals at BlizzCon or something like that?).
5. CS2 teams are profitable
They are in fact not. They all are costing off sticker-money. The T3 scene is collapsing with ESL pulling out of national events and now with Valves changes towards the Major qualification, even more teams are disbanding. One of the best teams in the world (FaZe) just recently had to be sold, since the entire org was down in the shits and needed fresh cash.
BW Proleague worked because, as you said, it was marketing towards the home-market. But how many of the Proleague-sponsors are even operating outside of Korea? I can only really think of Samsung. It was cool and amazing, but it was also only working in a niche. A niche you can't really build your new big game around.
1. Nobody said you had to eliminate it entirely or even take half. But again this wasn't the only issue with Blizzard's preference and style of ruining their esports titles. And you don't know that it would have lead to anything except for a more stable scene. Perhaps instead eliminating WCS all together and sponsoring the actual TO's instead and forcing everyone to adhere to a schedule they set. There would still be an advantage to EU/NA as those events would be held there and participated in by most of the players. And while you say "barely anyone cared about" it was a 15 year old game at the time. There was still plenty of global interest for that game, but if there really was no interest why did they feel the need to cut out it's legs?
2. Blizzard paid what? A miniscule sum of money over 10 years leeching off the competetive and tournament scene they did absolutely nothing to build? They saw that they were finally about to make money and came to siphon off every drop they could possible get. Eliminating competition for whoever was going to pay them the most. It isn't the least bit disrespectful, more of an accurate assessment of the worth of Blizzard in esports. Hearthstone, SC2, War3, BW, OWL, have all but died or are shadows of their formerselves becuase of Blizzard's interference. SC2 probably would have not only done better without them, but would be stronger still as well.
3. Please they certainly did. They started challenging them on liscensing, and were threatening to give GOM control over broadcasting and tournaments. You are right broodwar wasn't doing great, crazy how a game that came out 15 years later and had to expansions isn't doing great right now in far less time. And that BW scene yeah it shrunk a bit, but it was due to a Korean recession moreso than anything else, not due to suddenly people not wanting to watch. And since it was largely fueled by massive companies that were shortening their budgets that was the downfall of those teams. And you're right they didn't make some massive come back because they were thwarted and killed off by moves Blizzard made.
No nobody was asking for Blizzard to fund them, just not mess with what they had unless they planned to shoulder all the responsibility. KESPA/OGN and most of the korean entities had over a decade of not needing Blizzard, sure the recession got to a few teams, but they didn't need Blizzard to save them. And they could have created a global SC2 scene without messing with BW or even the status quo, they chose to, so they could eliminate their competition and make it look like they did it all on their own. They easily could have had GSL and WCS without forcing the hand of the current situation, but that wasn't the route they chose.
4. Nobody said only held in area where the best talent is, but they are largely located nearer to the population center. We aren't hosting crossfire tournaments here in NA. And just because CS2 has a few one offs and a rotation major local doesn't change the fact that like 85% of the events are in EU or somewhat EU centric. As for the global entities for Valorant/LoL they fully support their own structure, and because all of the participants are taken care of they can be as global as they please. Strange though they didn't have to exit LoL, oh that's right because they built it up themselves, and when they did take over, they shouldered the responsibility of carrying it through.
5. Again each team is different in CS2. Is faze profitable? No, they went broke and had to sell themselves from over extending. Are vitality/G2? Nope. But are Mouz/VP/Ence/Col/Heroic/Mongolz? Yup. The teams that are buying trophies are the broke ones. But there are sustainable teams, especially MOUZ who is winning in all regards. They're farming bonus sticker money, selling off players, and have a budget roster, while winning events. But that depends on how you run your team, but there certainly are avenues to be profitable in CS2 without reliance on sticker money.
As for who would sponsor the teams outside of Korea well that is a weird one isn't it? I mean with all the conflicts and what not. But TO's outside don't seem to allow sponsorships as much to be visibile so that isn't as much of a thing now is it? I would guess some companies would consider it, but even then you still have the issue with TO sponsors. Like if Intel is sponsoring IEM, but AMD is sponsoring Faze who gets to show out? Honestly I think it should be both, but that is sort of a tecnical/legal issue taht probably boils down to the TO winning.
I do find it strage that despite all the evidence, maybe not directly linked or sourced, but just all the chaos surrouding Blizzard and their titles and esports, you can't see they were cancerous leeches to the entire esports scene. They tried to steal the concept of Dota because it was first created in their game, even though it was conceptualized outside of it. They swooped in and cut off most every TO out there, who were already doing a better job than they ever could. The pennies they added were to hype themselves up, meanwhile TO's have been securing prize pools and funding since before Blizzard knew what an esport was. They're constantly cycling their trash concepts of games, hell SC2 cost 180 to buy in total, but honestly contentwise is inferior to broodwar be it campaign length, bnet 1.0 vs 2.0, UMS possibilities. They created a league to stifle out competition in their shooter game, just to default on that same league a few years later. They have actively harassed any entity that could potentially get in their way of siphoning money out of a system they took no part in for over a decade for almost any of their games. But sure all the dead TO's, Teams, The fading of all the esports in their titles, the online interface that was worse than bnet 1.0, and the piss poor servers, that was just all a coincidence lol. Best part is BW is still going on, the grass root or korean BW scene they tried to kill is nearing 25 years, blizzard lasted 10 while leeching off their and other competitive scene's work lol.
In which world (...) Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Look at that list you made, and find which of those players has been or currently is the world champion. Oliveira peaks fucking high
I made that list (which lacks a Serral win vs Shin, my bad!) to respond a person that emitted a deranged comment. GSL is still an on pair tournament to ESL big events (besdies kato and the Saudi cup this year).
ESL Dallas is wider in terms of amount of players, but at the end of the day, if you are seeded, the depth of the Tourney is similar as this year's GSL. Even in terms of the quality of contender players, both are quite similar, with 5 out of 8 ESL playoffs occupied by GSL participants. (6 if we take into account Reynor's participation in GSL).
In which world (...) Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Look at that list you made, and find which of those players has been or currently is the world champion. Oliveira peaks fucking high
I made that list (which lacks a Serral win vs Shin, my bad!) to respond a person that emitted a deranged comment. GSL is still an on pair tournament to ESL big events (besdies kato and the Saudi cup this year).
ESL Dallas is wider in terms of amount of players, but at the end of the day, if you are seeded, the depth of the Tourney is similar as this year's GSL. Even in terms of the quality of contender players, both are quite similar, with 5 out of 8 ESL playoffs occupied by GSL participants. (6 if we take into account Reynor's participation in GSL).
Aye plus the bracket gods must be acknowledged.
Some GSL championship runs are rougher than an ESL, sometimes it’s the other way around.
They’re different formats, not just in terms of prep but depending on how an ESL is doing things I feel sometimes it can be more forgiving in ways. A decent group and winning it really does make it considerably easier sometimes than GSL depending on aforementioned gods, as it does give a bigger leg up
In which world (...) Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Look at that list you made, and find which of those players has been or currently is the world champion. Oliveira peaks fucking high
I made that list (which lacks a Serral win vs Shin, my bad!) to respond a person that emitted a deranged comment. GSL is still an on pair tournament to ESL big events (besdies kato and the Saudi cup this year).
ESL Dallas is wider in terms of amount of players, but at the end of the day, if you are seeded, the depth of the Tourney is similar as this year's GSL. Even in terms of the quality of contender players, both are quite similar, with 5 out of 8 ESL playoffs occupied by GSL participants. (6 if we take into account Reynor's participation in GSL).
GSL isnt on pair with WCS globals/finals for the simple reason that Serral doesnt play it.
And its not an exageration, if you compute the rate of which Serral has won the last WC/season finals.
Ill bet that Maru's chances rise enormously with you take Serral off of it (and any other players)
On June 27 2024 13:28 NoobSkills wrote: 1. Nobody said you had to eliminate it entirely or even take half. But again this wasn't the only issue with Blizzard's preference and style of ruining their esports titles. And you don't know that it would have lead to anything except for a more stable scene. Perhaps instead eliminating WCS all together and sponsoring the actual TO's instead and forcing everyone to adhere to a schedule they set. There would still be an advantage to EU/NA as those events would be held there and participated in by most of the players. And while you say "barely anyone cared about" it was a 15 year old game at the time. There was still plenty of global interest for that game, but if there really was no interest why did they feel the need to cut out it's legs?
On a much smaller scale than SC2, Microsoft is currently pumping money into AoE 2. They don't organize anything themselves, they just fund TOs out of the community (mostly streamers, so not companies like ESL). And you know what? Those TOs STILL have to adhere to Microsofts schedule. Because wow, Microsoft doesn't want two S-Tier tournaments at the same time, practically splitting the pro-players in half and weakening the effect of each tournament. So even IF Blizzard would have been crazy enough to just throw money at multiple TOs to host their own events, all of these TOs still would have done everything aligned with Blizzards interests. You can't have the money without the say...
2. Blizzard paid what? A miniscule sum of money over 10 years leeching off the competetive and tournament scene they did absolutely nothing to build? They saw that they were finally about to make money and came to siphon off every drop they could possible get. Eliminating competition for whoever was going to pay them the most. It isn't the least bit disrespectful, more of an accurate assessment of the worth of Blizzard in esports. Hearthstone, SC2, War3, BW, OWL, have all but died or are shadows of their formerselves becuase of Blizzard's interference. SC2 probably would have not only done better without them, but would be stronger still as well.
Miniscule sum? Are you high or something? Blizzard funded WCS for years, they funded GSL right from the get-go (in part so it could even hold up against OGN/Kespa). And even after they jumped out, they still paid ESl for another two years before finally leaving. They didn't "siphon" anything. Pretty sure they lost a huge sum of cash on their entire Esport investment. BW and War3 were "hit" by the release of SC2 more than anything else...and of course the fact that you could make actual money there as a player. That was right after the first big economical bubble-burst in Esports, too. Hearthstone was never really an "Esports-game", yet Blizzard threw money at it. And Overwatch was designed mostly from the start to end up in OWL...which then of course failed in the end, but that seems more to be a problem with "Blizzard as the developer" and not "Blizzard the TO". And just a reminder, we are purely talking about "Blizzard the TO" here.
And yeah, pretty sure SC2 wouldn't have done better without Blizzard money. In fact, the game would probably looked like it does today for ten years instead. So basically worse, since I can't imagine 14-year-old Maru and 15-year old Reynor jumping into SC2 if you are playing for peanuts most of the time. Especially Maru would have certainly done something different...who knows, maybe he would be in LoL now not winning Worlds.
3. Please they certainly did. They started challenging them on liscensing, and were threatening to give GOM control over broadcasting and tournaments. You are right broodwar wasn't doing great, crazy how a game that came out 15 years later and had to expansions isn't doing great right now in far less time. And that BW scene yeah it shrunk a bit, but it was due to a Korean recession moreso than anything else, not due to suddenly people not wanting to watch. And since it was largely fueled by massive companies that were shortening their budgets that was the downfall of those teams. And you're right they didn't make some massive come back because they were thwarted and killed off by moves Blizzard made.
You really should read-up on the entire thing, because it really didn't happen (as far as we publicly know) as you think. It wasn't Blizzard pummeling on poor Kespa/OGN. In fact, Kespa started first, bullying GomTV, trying to get rid of it by blocking their players to compete in their events - which was still in BroodWar btw. The only "moves" Blizzard did to destroy the old system was a)release a new game...shame on them and b)not just give in into all demands Kespa made. Not saying Blizzard was completly innocent, they certainly did come in strong, being the first who actually said "fuck this, this our game, we have the rights to everything related to it"...a thing anyone else does by now, too.
4. Nobody said only held in area where the best talent is, but they are largely located nearer to the population center. We aren't hosting crossfire tournaments here in NA. And just because CS2 has a few one offs and a rotation major local doesn't change the fact that like 85% of the events are in EU or somewhat EU centric. As for the global entities for Valorant/LoL they fully support their own structure, and because all of the participants are taken care of they can be as global as they please. Strange though they didn't have to exit LoL, oh that's right because they built it up themselves, and when they did take over, they shouldered the responsibility of carrying it through.
It aren't "a few". ESL as the forerunner especially is trying to make the competition as global as possible. Sure, EU is still holding the majority, but might I remind you that the EU (not to mention Europe as a whole) alone has eight to nine times the residents of South Korea. And the fanbase here for Counterstrike is gigantic. So it makes sense. What's not making sense is hosting everything SC2-related in Korea...
And was for the LoL/Valo thing...of course Riot didn't kill off LoL for Valo. For one, they are entirely different genres, so they are not competing with each other, but instead support each other. And also...Blizzard didn't kill off BW in Korea (everywhere else, again, it was dead anyway). They didn't say "Kespa has to close down everything". It just became hugely unsuistanable with SC2 being around, the economical crisis and companies in Korea probalby wanting to jump onto the new ship.
5. Again each team is different in CS2. Is faze profitable? No, they went broke and had to sell themselves from over extending. Are vitality/G2? Nope. But are Mouz/VP/Ence/Col/Heroic/Mongolz? Yup. The teams that are buying trophies are the broke ones. But there are sustainable teams, especially MOUZ who is winning in all regards. They're farming bonus sticker money, selling off players, and have a budget roster, while winning events. But that depends on how you run your team, but there certainly are avenues to be profitable in CS2 without reliance on sticker money.
Pretty sure Heroic is broke af aswell. And the financial situation of MOUZ for example remains to be seen. I would say they are holding up and are not in crisis, but I personally wouldn't bet money that they are profitable to a bigger degree. But I don't want to digress into this too much further, since I honestly can't even remember why we started this particular part of the debate and how it was linked to Starcraft ._.
Closing thoughts:
First of all, I think Blizzard did one huge mistake...and ironically, it was the exact opposite of what you think. Blizzard tried to have the global appeal of WC3, but still wanted Korea to enjoy its highly organized "Bubble". Sadly, that might have let to them not winning on either side of the bracket. Riot did the opposite: Riot always said "fuck it Korea, you have the best players and teams, but you don't get any special treatment". Sure, Korea often gets the most slots for Worlds, but they are not hugely different compared to China or EMEA. And the LCK is paying out almost the same money as the LEC. And nobody there is complaining "buhu, the tenth placed team in Korea *might* (we honestly don't know) be better than the winnier of LEC, so unfair!". Okay, we do know, G2 would wreck the bottom half of LCK-teams, but anyway. That led to a global scene, a global appeal. EMEA-fans can enjoy their hometown teams, with amazingly produced games. And we can cheer for our times at global competitions, even when they usually get destroyed by the topdogs of Korea and China. You don't need the Proleague-Kespa-Bubble.
if I had to guess, I would say you are more of a BroodWar than SC2 fan, right? And it is fine if you are pissed at the developer Blizzard, I'm not arguing there. But when it comes to supporting Esports, especially Starcraft, you are hugely unfair. And I still get the feeling you are somehow mad that Blizzard didn't release SC2 and then said "so and now Kespa gets one million bucks a year to continue to run BroodWar, because that's totally reasonable!" I get that, I was mad in 2010 aswell, when players, TOs and viewers alike run away from WC3 towards SC2. But you can't expect Blizzard to just throw away money for everything, just so that a few people are happy and get their own game supported.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
In this current world where Oliveria > all those Koreans listed
This ain’t 2017.
Current sOO and classic are a non factor in any tournaments.
Oliveria pushed Serral to the limit while the rest of the Korean terrans has been stomped by Serral for years, correction almost all the Koreans has been stomped except for zvz here and there
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
In this current world where Oliveria > all those Koreans listed
This ain’t 2017.
Current sOO and classic are a non factor in any tournaments.
Oliveria pushed Serral to the limit while the rest of the Korean terrans has been stomped by Serral for years, correction almost all the Koreans has been stomped except for zvz here and there
I mean aligulac is not always the best indicator of form / level, but Oliveira is outside the top 10 currently (http://aligulac.com/periods/latest/), and him making top 4 at DH:Dallas was kind of a fluke rather than what was expected.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
In this current world where Oliveria > all those Koreans listed
This ain’t 2017.
Current sOO and classic are a non factor in any tournaments.
Oliveria pushed Serral to the limit while the rest of the Korean terrans has been stomped by Serral for years, correction almost all the Koreans has been stomped except for zvz here and there
Yet, the last person who defeated Serral in a series was Maru.
WCEG is a huge event, if anything it's the Esports World Cup, before Esports World Cup came along. Still I would place Blizzcon highest, followed by Katowice (I don't care if it has a title in its name) and then this. Let's see with Gamers8 and this one, it's hard to tell, but it seems the Esports World Cup will be the biggest event we've had.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
On June 28 2024 01:18 goldensail wrote: Rogue just beat Clem, whom many consider the best TvZ player at the moment, 3:0.
Such is the state of TvZ balance.
A single instance doesn't mean much though, afaik Clem was quite tired and it's a small online cup. Rather, it tells more about Rogue being serious about coming back than TvZ balance imo
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
So funny. Korean elist had nothing but number of matches to say, this is even a worse factor to bloat your GSL. If Serral lost to herO and Reynor, he was placed in knock out bracket and beat other players until Final, he would have 8 matches, Ohh 8 matches but lost 2 series is much better than 5 matches straight to the champion. This is Korean elist’s logic.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
On June 28 2024 03:47 njleslu2024 wrote: So funny. Korean elist had nothing but number of matches to say, this is even a worse factor to bloat your GSL. If Serral lost to herO and Reynor, he was placed in knock out bracket and beat other players until Final, he would have 8 matches, Ohh 8 matches but lost 2 series is much better than 5 matches straight to the champion. This is Korean elist’s logic.
I don't get why are you not straightforward and instead you chose to speak about me in third person? Anyways I was just referring to a comment saying that GSL was a B tier tournament.
On June 28 2024 03:47 njleslu2024 wrote: So funny. Korean elist had nothing but number of matches to say, this is even a worse factor to bloat your GSL. If Serral lost to herO and Reynor, he was placed in knock out bracket and beat other players until Final, he would have 8 matches, Ohh 8 matches but lost 2 series is much better than 5 matches straight to the champion. This is Korean elist’s logic.
I don't get why are you not straightforward and instead you chose to speak about me in third person? Anyways I was just referring to a comment saying that GSL was a B tier tournament.
ESWC > IEM Katowice > ESL masters > GSL > other, winning current GSL is not the same as winning Dallas, not even close.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
Source? According to Aligulac Clem, Maru, ByuN and Heromarine all have a higher TvZ rating. And Oli literally has never won a series against Serral and even Shin has a dominant record against him-
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
Source? According to Aligulac Clem, Maru, ByuN and Heromarine all have a higher TvZ rating. And Oli literally has never won a series against Serral and even Shin has a dominant record against him-
Oliveira is a different player, please note that. If he can find his comfortable zone in a tournament he can be nearly unbeatable, like he did in IEM 2023 and ESL Dallas. But he is not stable enough, so he seldom had his comfortable zone. In ESL Dallas he beat Reynor Classic and Stats, and pushed Serral to his limit, performing much better than any other terran, which means he was in a very good shape at that time.
On June 28 2024 03:47 njleslu2024 wrote: So funny. Korean elist had nothing but number of matches to say, this is even a worse factor to bloat your GSL. If Serral lost to herO and Reynor, he was placed in knock out bracket and beat other players until Final, he would have 8 matches, Ohh 8 matches but lost 2 series is much better than 5 matches straight to the champion. This is Korean elist’s logic.
I don't get why are you not straightforward and instead you chose to speak about me in third person? Anyways I was just referring to a comment saying that GSL was a B tier tournament.
ESWC > IEM Katowice > ESL masters > GSL > other, winning current GSL is not the same as winning Dallas, not even close.
Very nice string of characters you assembled there, shame you cannot back those statements with facts (other than the single series you saw of Oliveria vs Serral against which everything else in SC2 you compare to).
Pretty weak path maru had, only worthy opponent is herO on his path
Oliveria & Maru > all those Koreans (in current meta and map pool)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run. Oliveira didn't win, Maru didn't either, any other player didn't either. But he is def the best against Serral in a series since IEM katowice.
On June 28 2024 03:47 njleslu2024 wrote: So funny. Korean elist had nothing but number of matches to say, this is even a worse factor to bloat your GSL. If Serral lost to herO and Reynor, he was placed in knock out bracket and beat other players until Final, he would have 8 matches, Ohh 8 matches but lost 2 series is much better than 5 matches straight to the champion. This is Korean elist’s logic.
I don't get why are you not straightforward and instead you chose to speak about me in third person? Anyways I was just referring to a comment saying that GSL was a B tier tournament.
ESWC > IEM Katowice > ESL masters > GSL > other, winning current GSL is not the same as winning Dallas, not even close.
Very nice string of characters you assembled there, shame you cannot back those statements with facts (other than the single series you saw of Oliveria vs Serral against which everything else in SC2 you compare to).
At least no one would agree with you Maru's GSL S1 champion can be compared to Serral's ESL spring. :-)
Ahh yes- having to go through more good players in a prep tournament. Clearly not as hard as going through 4 players. Makes total sense! Strong grasp on logic + perspective. Clearly no hyperbole or fanboyism going on here. Genuine discussion. Allow.
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run.
Well if you don't want to engage to the debate, then don't. But if you do and you tell me that Maru's GSL run was easier than Serral Dallas run, I just hard disagree. They are comparable.
On June 27 2024 04:29 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: [quote]
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run.
Well if you don't want to engage to the debate, then don't. But if you do and you tell me that Maru's GSL run was easier than Serral Dallas run, I just hard disagree. They are comparable.
On June 27 2024 04:29 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: [quote]
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run.
Well if you don't want to engage to the debate, then don't. But if you do and you tell me that Maru's GSL run was easier than Serral Dallas run, I just hard disagree. They are comparable.
1. From opponent aspect: Serral's opponents: Maru, Oliveira, Shin, herO, Nice; Maru opponent: herO, Cure, Classic, soO, Shin. They both had Shin and herO, Nice is the weakest so ignore him. Oliveira performed really well in TvZ recently, much better than Classic performed in TvP, soO is already a tier 2 zerg and had nearly 0 chance of getting into ESWC. The rest is Maru and Cure, do you believe Cure is on the same level as Maru, don't make me laugh. 2. From tournament aspect, GSL top 6 are qualified to ESL spring, but top 4 in Dallas are directly qualified to ESWC, you see the difference? In ESL system Dallas is ranked higher than GSL. 3. From player sink aspect, GSL is a korean based tournament and ESL spring is a global, international tournament. In GSL you can't see Serral, Reynor (not in GSL during S1), Clem, HM, Oliveira and other competitive players all over the world, but in ESL you can. Okay, already explained reasons to you. Feel free to cope any harder.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run.
Well if you don't want to engage to the debate, then don't. But if you do and you tell me that Maru's GSL run was easier than Serral Dallas run, I just hard disagree. They are comparable.
1. From opponent aspect: Serral's opponents: Maru, Oliveira, Shin, herO, Nice; Maru opponent: herO, Cure, Classic, soO, Shin. They both had Shin and herO, Nice is the weakest so ignore him. Oliveira performed really well in TvZ recently, much better than Classic performed in TvP, soO is already a tier 2 zerg and had nearly 0 chance of getting into ESWC. The rest is Maru and Cure, do you believe Cure is on the same level as Maru, don't make me laugh. 2. From tournament aspect, GSL top 6 are qualified to ESL spring, but top 4 in Dallas are directly qualified to ESWC, you see the difference? In ESL system Dallas is ranked higher than GSL. 3. From player sink aspect, GSL is a korean based tournament and ESL spring is a global, international tournament. In GSL you can't see Serral, Reynor (not in GSL during S1), Clem, HM, Oliveira and other competitive players all over the world, but in ESL you can. Okay, already explained reasons to you. Feel free to cope any harder.
1. Yes, I do think that defeating soO Cure and Classic is a more challenging path than defeating Oliveria and Nice.
2. Congratulations! You realized that the ESL system is a welfare system designed to boost the SC2 in Europe/Americas/Asia (which is a good thing) and the seeds do not reflect the overall strength of the different scenes. Where are you been these last 7 years?
3. True, you cant see many Asia/EU players in GSL (they are able to participate, but its unrealistic given the near zero chances they have to win). But GSL is strong because its competing players fill most of the playoffs of Katowices,Blizcons, ESL masters (again this is the argument you fail to argue against).
On June 28 2024 02:56 njleslu2024 wrote: [quote] Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run.
Well if you don't want to engage to the debate, then don't. But if you do and you tell me that Maru's GSL run was easier than Serral Dallas run, I just hard disagree. They are comparable.
1. From opponent aspect: Serral's opponents: Maru, Oliveira, Shin, herO, Nice; Maru opponent: herO, Cure, Classic, soO, Shin. They both had Shin and herO, Nice is the weakest so ignore him. Oliveira performed really well in TvZ recently, much better than Classic performed in TvP, soO is already a tier 2 zerg and had nearly 0 chance of getting into ESWC. The rest is Maru and Cure, do you believe Cure is on the same level as Maru, don't make me laugh. 2. From tournament aspect, GSL top 6 are qualified to ESL spring, but top 4 in Dallas are directly qualified to ESWC, you see the difference? In ESL system Dallas is ranked higher than GSL. 3. From player sink aspect, GSL is a korean based tournament and ESL spring is a global, international tournament. In GSL you can't see Serral, Reynor (not in GSL during S1), Clem, HM, Oliveira and other competitive players all over the world, but in ESL you can. Okay, already explained reasons to you. Feel free to cope any harder.
1. Yes, I do think that defeating soO Cure and Classic is a more challenging path than defeating Oliveria and Nice.
2. Congratulations! You realized that the ESL system is a welfare system designed to boost the SC2 in Europe/Americas/Asia (which is a good thing) and the seeds do not reflect the overall strength of the different scenes. Where are you been these last 7 years?
3. True, you cant see many Asia/EU players in GSL (they are able to participate, but its unrealistic given the near zero chances they have to win). But GSL is strong because its competing players fill most of the playoffs of Katowices,Blizcons, ESL masters (again this is the argument you fail to argue against).
Get rekt bro
So you cannot admit Maru is on Serral's path and beating Maru is much more difficult than beating soO Cure and Classic combined? Why you always dodge the main question about Maru but only picking up fight with me regarding the strength of Oliveira? What's more interesting is I have explained to you Oliveira's TvZ is top level during Dallas and he can cast large thread to Serral provided he knows Serral more than any other Terran. I don't wanna hear any reason like "I think", "I do think" or "I hard disagree", which is not making any sense.
And I don't care if ESL is a welfare system or something else, I just want to let you know in the current tournament system Dallas top 4 can be qualified to global final but GSL champion cannot be qualified, this is how ESL ranked the quality of the tournaments, when GSL is prestigious enough GSL champion can also directly go to global final, that's the difference.
What's more, you may misunderstood the "average quality" and "top quality" of the player pools, GSL players are still better in average quality in large tournaments at this second, but since 2023 GSL or any Korean players haven't won ANY single global scale tournament, starting IEM 2023, all tournaments were won by non-koreans (Oliveira, Serral, Reynor and Clem got all of them). To measure the quality champion we have to comapre the top level instead of average quality.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run.
Well if you don't want to engage to the debate, then don't. But if you do and you tell me that Maru's GSL run was easier than Serral Dallas run, I just hard disagree. They are comparable.
1. From opponent aspect: Serral's opponents: Maru, Oliveira, Shin, herO, Nice; Maru opponent: herO, Cure, Classic, soO, Shin. They both had Shin and herO, Nice is the weakest so ignore him. Oliveira performed really well in TvZ recently, much better than Classic performed in TvP, soO is already a tier 2 zerg and had nearly 0 chance of getting into ESWC. The rest is Maru and Cure, do you believe Cure is on the same level as Maru, don't make me laugh. 2. From tournament aspect, GSL top 6 are qualified to ESL spring, but top 4 in Dallas are directly qualified to ESWC, you see the difference? In ESL system Dallas is ranked higher than GSL. 3. From player sink aspect, GSL is a korean based tournament and ESL spring is a global, international tournament. In GSL you can't see Serral, Reynor (not in GSL during S1), Clem, HM, Oliveira and other competitive players all over the world, but in ESL you can. Okay, already explained reasons to you. Feel free to cope any harder.
1. Yes, I do think that defeating soO Cure and Classic is a more challenging path than defeating Oliveria and Nice.
2. Congratulations! You realized that the ESL system is a welfare system designed to boost the SC2 in Europe/Americas/Asia (which is a good thing) and the seeds do not reflect the overall strength of the different scenes. Where are you been these last 7 years?
3. True, you cant see many Asia/EU players in GSL (they are able to participate, but its unrealistic given the near zero chances they have to win). But GSL is strong because its competing players fill most of the playoffs of Katowices,Blizcons, ESL masters (again this is the argument you fail to argue against).
Get rekt bro
So you cannot admit Maru is on Serral's path and beating Maru is much more difficult than beating soO Cure and Classic combined? Why you always dodge the main question about Maru but only picking up fight with me regarding the strength of Oliveira? What's more interesting is I have explained to you Oliveira's TvZ is top level during Dallas and he can cast large thread to Serral provided he knows Serral more than any other Terran. I don't wanna hear any reason like "I think", "I do think" or "I hard disagree", which is not making any sense.
And I don't care if ESL is a welfare system or something else, I just want to let you know in the current tournament system Dallas top 4 can be qualified to global final but GSL champion cannot be qualified, this is how ESL ranked the quality of the tournaments, when GSL is prestigious enough GSL champion can also directly go to global final, that's the difference.
What's more, you may misunderstood the "average quality" and "top quality" of the player pools, GSL players are still better in average quality in large tournaments at this second, but since 2023 GSL or any Korean players haven't won ANY single global scale tournament, starting IEM 2023, all tournaments were won by non-koreans (Oliveira, Serral, Reynor and Clem got all of them). To measure the quality champion we have to comapre the top level instead of average quality.
Oh, I didnt mention the Serral beating Maru thing, because we all agree beating the Goat in a final is very impressive, I though it was not need to state.
Olivera is very good vs Serral because they are practise partners as Oliveria himself said, Olivera can sometimes pull above its strengths and make impressive runs, yet he is not on par of Cure's and herO's skillset (for example).
Indeed, GSL has a better overall quality but EU has the Clem/Reynor/Serral trio which are on par at least and sometimes better than most korean players. Precisely because of that, GSL is still a very competitive tourney (for example Reynor failed to take a single map in this current season).
In the Katowice 2023 gsl did give a direct ticket to the tournament, as well as the masters tournaments.
I think an on fire Oliveira, which he were, is more powerful than a Cure, though if they met in a GSL finals Cure would probably most likely win. Oliveira seem to thrive on the momentum that he builds during a weekend tournament, which is also an awesome talent.
On June 28 2024 03:27 njleslu2024 wrote: [quote] Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run.
Well if you don't want to engage to the debate, then don't. But if you do and you tell me that Maru's GSL run was easier than Serral Dallas run, I just hard disagree. They are comparable.
1. From opponent aspect: Serral's opponents: Maru, Oliveira, Shin, herO, Nice; Maru opponent: herO, Cure, Classic, soO, Shin. They both had Shin and herO, Nice is the weakest so ignore him. Oliveira performed really well in TvZ recently, much better than Classic performed in TvP, soO is already a tier 2 zerg and had nearly 0 chance of getting into ESWC. The rest is Maru and Cure, do you believe Cure is on the same level as Maru, don't make me laugh. 2. From tournament aspect, GSL top 6 are qualified to ESL spring, but top 4 in Dallas are directly qualified to ESWC, you see the difference? In ESL system Dallas is ranked higher than GSL. 3. From player sink aspect, GSL is a korean based tournament and ESL spring is a global, international tournament. In GSL you can't see Serral, Reynor (not in GSL during S1), Clem, HM, Oliveira and other competitive players all over the world, but in ESL you can. Okay, already explained reasons to you. Feel free to cope any harder.
1. Yes, I do think that defeating soO Cure and Classic is a more challenging path than defeating Oliveria and Nice.
2. Congratulations! You realized that the ESL system is a welfare system designed to boost the SC2 in Europe/Americas/Asia (which is a good thing) and the seeds do not reflect the overall strength of the different scenes. Where are you been these last 7 years?
3. True, you cant see many Asia/EU players in GSL (they are able to participate, but its unrealistic given the near zero chances they have to win). But GSL is strong because its competing players fill most of the playoffs of Katowices,Blizcons, ESL masters (again this is the argument you fail to argue against).
Get rekt bro
So you cannot admit Maru is on Serral's path and beating Maru is much more difficult than beating soO Cure and Classic combined? Why you always dodge the main question about Maru but only picking up fight with me regarding the strength of Oliveira? What's more interesting is I have explained to you Oliveira's TvZ is top level during Dallas and he can cast large thread to Serral provided he knows Serral more than any other Terran. I don't wanna hear any reason like "I think", "I do think" or "I hard disagree", which is not making any sense.
And I don't care if ESL is a welfare system or something else, I just want to let you know in the current tournament system Dallas top 4 can be qualified to global final but GSL champion cannot be qualified, this is how ESL ranked the quality of the tournaments, when GSL is prestigious enough GSL champion can also directly go to global final, that's the difference.
What's more, you may misunderstood the "average quality" and "top quality" of the player pools, GSL players are still better in average quality in large tournaments at this second, but since 2023 GSL or any Korean players haven't won ANY single global scale tournament, starting IEM 2023, all tournaments were won by non-koreans (Oliveira, Serral, Reynor and Clem got all of them). To measure the quality champion we have to comapre the top level instead of average quality.
Oh, I didnt mention the Serral beating Maru thing, because we all agree beating the Goat in a final is very impressive, I though it was not need to state.
Olivera is very good vs Serral because they are practise partners as Oliveria himself said, Olivera can sometimes pull above its strengths and make impressive runs, yet he is not on par of Cure's and herO's skillset (for example).
Indeed, GSL has a better overall quality but EU has the Clem/Reynor/Serral trio which are on par at least and sometimes better than most korean players. Precisely because of that, GSL is still a very competitive tourney (for example Reynor failed to take a single map in this current season).
Please note that GSL 2024 S1 doesn't include any top European players, but ESL Spring included both top Korean and top European players, and some decent players in Asia and America. That's why ESL master is more like a global scale tournament than GSL.
For Oliveira's part I don't want to explain it again like an old father. Already explained to you a few times.
Ohh, I forgot to say, yes you are right, Maru is the goat and he got swept Serral 0-4 0-4 0-3 this year and he is still the goat. I know the answer for the goat debate: YOU CANT BE GOAT UNLESS YOU HAVE 0 WC AND YOU HAVE TO GET SWEPT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Sadly, Serral hasn't, damn, so he can never be goat.
ESWC > IEM Katowice > ESL masters > GSL > other, winning current GSL is not the same as winning Dallas, not even close.
found the kid that's never played in a sports league his entire life, lol
sc2 reddit is leakin'
I was talking about GSL and ESL masters THIS YEAR. Someone may have to send you back to your primary school and you may need to pick up your basic reading ability :-)
On June 27 2024 13:28 NoobSkills wrote: 1. Nobody said you had to eliminate it entirely or even take half. But again this wasn't the only issue with Blizzard's preference and style of ruining their esports titles. And you don't know that it would have lead to anything except for a more stable scene. Perhaps instead eliminating WCS all together and sponsoring the actual TO's instead and forcing everyone to adhere to a schedule they set. There would still be an advantage to EU/NA as those events would be held there and participated in by most of the players. And while you say "barely anyone cared about" it was a 15 year old game at the time. There was still plenty of global interest for that game, but if there really was no interest why did they feel the need to cut out it's legs?
On a much smaller scale than SC2, Microsoft is currently pumping money into AoE 2. They don't organize anything themselves, they just fund TOs out of the community (mostly streamers, so not companies like ESL). And you know what? Those TOs STILL have to adhere to Microsofts schedule. Because wow, Microsoft doesn't want two S-Tier tournaments at the same time, practically splitting the pro-players in half and weakening the effect of each tournament. So even IF Blizzard would have been crazy enough to just throw money at multiple TOs to host their own events, all of these TOs still would have done everything aligned with Blizzards interests. You can't have the money without the say...
2. Blizzard paid what? A miniscule sum of money over 10 years leeching off the competetive and tournament scene they did absolutely nothing to build? They saw that they were finally about to make money and came to siphon off every drop they could possible get. Eliminating competition for whoever was going to pay them the most. It isn't the least bit disrespectful, more of an accurate assessment of the worth of Blizzard in esports. Hearthstone, SC2, War3, BW, OWL, have all but died or are shadows of their formerselves becuase of Blizzard's interference. SC2 probably would have not only done better without them, but would be stronger still as well.
Miniscule sum? Are you high or something? Blizzard funded WCS for years, they funded GSL right from the get-go (in part so it could even hold up against OGN/Kespa). And even after they jumped out, they still paid ESl for another two years before finally leaving. They didn't "siphon" anything. Pretty sure they lost a huge sum of cash on their entire Esport investment. BW and War3 were "hit" by the release of SC2 more than anything else...and of course the fact that you could make actual money there as a player. That was right after the first big economical bubble-burst in Esports, too. Hearthstone was never really an "Esports-game", yet Blizzard threw money at it. And Overwatch was designed mostly from the start to end up in OWL...which then of course failed in the end, but that seems more to be a problem with "Blizzard as the developer" and not "Blizzard the TO". And just a reminder, we are purely talking about "Blizzard the TO" here.
And yeah, pretty sure SC2 wouldn't have done better without Blizzard money. In fact, the game would probably looked like it does today for ten years instead. So basically worse, since I can't imagine 14-year-old Maru and 15-year old Reynor jumping into SC2 if you are playing for peanuts most of the time. Especially Maru would have certainly done something different...who knows, maybe he would be in LoL now not winning Worlds.
3. Please they certainly did. They started challenging them on liscensing, and were threatening to give GOM control over broadcasting and tournaments. You are right broodwar wasn't doing great, crazy how a game that came out 15 years later and had to expansions isn't doing great right now in far less time. And that BW scene yeah it shrunk a bit, but it was due to a Korean recession moreso than anything else, not due to suddenly people not wanting to watch. And since it was largely fueled by massive companies that were shortening their budgets that was the downfall of those teams. And you're right they didn't make some massive come back because they were thwarted and killed off by moves Blizzard made.
You really should read-up on the entire thing, because it really didn't happen (as far as we publicly know) as you think. It wasn't Blizzard pummeling on poor Kespa/OGN. In fact, Kespa started first, bullying GomTV, trying to get rid of it by blocking their players to compete in their events - which was still in BroodWar btw. The only "moves" Blizzard did to destroy the old system was a)release a new game...shame on them and b)not just give in into all demands Kespa made. Not saying Blizzard was completly innocent, they certainly did come in strong, being the first who actually said "fuck this, this our game, we have the rights to everything related to it"...a thing anyone else does by now, too.
4. Nobody said only held in area where the best talent is, but they are largely located nearer to the population center. We aren't hosting crossfire tournaments here in NA. And just because CS2 has a few one offs and a rotation major local doesn't change the fact that like 85% of the events are in EU or somewhat EU centric. As for the global entities for Valorant/LoL they fully support their own structure, and because all of the participants are taken care of they can be as global as they please. Strange though they didn't have to exit LoL, oh that's right because they built it up themselves, and when they did take over, they shouldered the responsibility of carrying it through.
It aren't "a few". ESL as the forerunner especially is trying to make the competition as global as possible. Sure, EU is still holding the majority, but might I remind you that the EU (not to mention Europe as a whole) alone has eight to nine times the residents of South Korea. And the fanbase here for Counterstrike is gigantic. So it makes sense. What's not making sense is hosting everything SC2-related in Korea...
And was for the LoL/Valo thing...of course Riot didn't kill off LoL for Valo. For one, they are entirely different genres, so they are not competing with each other, but instead support each other. And also...Blizzard didn't kill off BW in Korea (everywhere else, again, it was dead anyway). They didn't say "Kespa has to close down everything". It just became hugely unsuistanable with SC2 being around, the economical crisis and companies in Korea probalby wanting to jump onto the new ship.
5. Again each team is different in CS2. Is faze profitable? No, they went broke and had to sell themselves from over extending. Are vitality/G2? Nope. But are Mouz/VP/Ence/Col/Heroic/Mongolz? Yup. The teams that are buying trophies are the broke ones. But there are sustainable teams, especially MOUZ who is winning in all regards. They're farming bonus sticker money, selling off players, and have a budget roster, while winning events. But that depends on how you run your team, but there certainly are avenues to be profitable in CS2 without reliance on sticker money.
Pretty sure Heroic is broke af aswell. And the financial situation of MOUZ for example remains to be seen. I would say they are holding up and are not in crisis, but I personally wouldn't bet money that they are profitable to a bigger degree. But I don't want to digress into this too much further, since I honestly can't even remember why we started this particular part of the debate and how it was linked to Starcraft ._.
Closing thoughts:
First of all, I think Blizzard did one huge mistake...and ironically, it was the exact opposite of what you think. Blizzard tried to have the global appeal of WC3, but still wanted Korea to enjoy its highly organized "Bubble". Sadly, that might have let to them not winning on either side of the bracket. Riot did the opposite: Riot always said "fuck it Korea, you have the best players and teams, but you don't get any special treatment". Sure, Korea often gets the most slots for Worlds, but they are not hugely different compared to China or EMEA. And the LCK is paying out almost the same money as the LEC. And nobody there is complaining "buhu, the tenth placed team in Korea *might* (we honestly don't know) be better than the winnier of LEC, so unfair!". Okay, we do know, G2 would wreck the bottom half of LCK-teams, but anyway. That led to a global scene, a global appeal. EMEA-fans can enjoy their hometown teams, with amazingly produced games. And we can cheer for our times at global competitions, even when they usually get destroyed by the topdogs of Korea and China. You don't need the Proleague-Kespa-Bubble.
if I had to guess, I would say you are more of a BroodWar than SC2 fan, right? And it is fine if you are pissed at the developer Blizzard, I'm not arguing there. But when it comes to supporting Esports, especially Starcraft, you are hugely unfair. And I still get the feeling you are somehow mad that Blizzard didn't release SC2 and then said "so and now Kespa gets one million bucks a year to continue to run BroodWar, because that's totally reasonable!" I get that, I was mad in 2010 aswell, when players, TOs and viewers alike run away from WC3 towards SC2. But you can't expect Blizzard to just throw away money for everything, just so that a few people are happy and get their own game supported.
I'm not sure Microsoft is pumping money into AOE2 like you think. I know they work a lot with T90 and support his prize pools voluntarily, but maybe I don't know everything about the AOE2 tournament scene. If I remember a lot of their S tier events are run by individuals not even TOs and I'm not sure if there is any real support from Microsoft. As for following the rules all of them follow the rules anyway and I doubt microsoft has to say anything. Not that they couldn't, but if your main Casters at Redbull are the TOs you're trying to fuck over in that scene you're going to have a bad time. This btw is in regard to T90 and Nilli(i think spelling***) both holding their own S tier events in that space.
Yes, minuscule sum. They funded the WCS for years and the GSL/GOM from the get go sure. Riot/Valve are putting on events every year, with prize pools that surpass anything Blizzard has done greatly. They also never backed down, they're still doing it right now despite spending far more money.
As for OWL they collected millions in franchise fees to run an event while clipping anyone else's shot of running an event. You're claiming that Blizzard the developer and that isn't the case. It was the blizzard the TO ran their tournament into the ground.
As for 14 year old Maru and 15 year old Reynor, I'm sure every little kid playing a video game is thinking about the potential esports implications of the video game he likes lol..... And it is funny there were events run without Blizzard for the longest that weren't offering "peanuts" as you put it with ZERO blizzard support.
I think you read the legal portion of what happened because technically Blizzard was legally right in what they did. But they did that in order to force their hands in everything. You can pretend it was just about the legal aspect, but it wasn't. You are right though KESPA were dicks as well, but that was the way they were forced to fight the inevitable. In the end KESPA's only move at the time was to try and hold their players back, but it wasn't going to work, and giving a TO power over the game in that country was always going to lead down that road.
Again I never said they should hold every SC2 match in Korea, they just didn't need to mess with the systems in place they had no part of for over a decade. And I also never said Riot killed off LOL for Valo. It was more in terms of they didn't actively try to kill of entities that existed. Also those they did harm, they basically hired to run the LoL/Valorant product. Much different than Blizzard's approach. And you're right they didn't order KESPA to close down. Just pay the liscensing fees, and don't compete with GOM ever, even though they're running something 24/7, and if you attempt to hold back your players from them, then the licensing fee will be increased, oh and whatever rules GOM wants to make up to mess with you, you'll need to follow.
Heroic - Not broke, for sure a budget team, but is profitable. Just sold off the snakes and Cadian. MOUZ same to a lesser extend. The main financial line in CS in terms of individual CS teams being profitable is simply salary for the players.
In general sure, I like BW more so than SC2, but that doesn't change anything really. But overall I'm more of an esports fan of many titles. I don't get how anything is unfair though. I'm not mad that Blizzard didn't give KESPA money or OSL/MSL/Proleague. I'm mad they messed up their system on purpose to kill them off. I'm mad they were leeches in esports, and it is hilarious that despite being the last ones in are the first ones out after killing off competition to leech even more out of the scene. KESPA managed to stay afloat during a recession where their finances depended on that exact same economy. Blizzard however lasted less time in esports than KESPA, while not suffering from that same type of issue lol. Best part is nobody actually needed Blizzard's support. MLG existed, Dreamhacks, IEM, PGL, ESL, NASL.
I don't know why you guys are putting so much effort into comparing Maru's GSL path vs Serral's spring path. If you wanted to judge the tournament difficulty by path you would compare Maru's GSL path to Maru's spring path. That properly shows the difficulty of the tournament to win from Maru's perspective. And the conclusion you can draw from that exercise is tournaments with Serral in them are generally harder to win than tournaments without Serral in them.
Serral will typically have the easiesr path compared to everyone else in the tournament. He's usually the top seed, but most importantly he doesn't have to play Serral.
On June 27 2024 13:28 NoobSkills wrote: 1. Nobody said you had to eliminate it entirely or even take half. But again this wasn't the only issue with Blizzard's preference and style of ruining their esports titles. And you don't know that it would have lead to anything except for a more stable scene. Perhaps instead eliminating WCS all together and sponsoring the actual TO's instead and forcing everyone to adhere to a schedule they set. There would still be an advantage to EU/NA as those events would be held there and participated in by most of the players. And while you say "barely anyone cared about" it was a 15 year old game at the time. There was still plenty of global interest for that game, but if there really was no interest why did they feel the need to cut out it's legs?
On a much smaller scale than SC2, Microsoft is currently pumping money into AoE 2. They don't organize anything themselves, they just fund TOs out of the community (mostly streamers, so not companies like ESL). And you know what? Those TOs STILL have to adhere to Microsofts schedule. Because wow, Microsoft doesn't want two S-Tier tournaments at the same time, practically splitting the pro-players in half and weakening the effect of each tournament. So even IF Blizzard would have been crazy enough to just throw money at multiple TOs to host their own events, all of these TOs still would have done everything aligned with Blizzards interests. You can't have the money without the say...
2. Blizzard paid what? A miniscule sum of money over 10 years leeching off the competetive and tournament scene they did absolutely nothing to build? They saw that they were finally about to make money and came to siphon off every drop they could possible get. Eliminating competition for whoever was going to pay them the most. It isn't the least bit disrespectful, more of an accurate assessment of the worth of Blizzard in esports. Hearthstone, SC2, War3, BW, OWL, have all but died or are shadows of their formerselves becuase of Blizzard's interference. SC2 probably would have not only done better without them, but would be stronger still as well.
Miniscule sum? Are you high or something? Blizzard funded WCS for years, they funded GSL right from the get-go (in part so it could even hold up against OGN/Kespa). And even after they jumped out, they still paid ESl for another two years before finally leaving. They didn't "siphon" anything. Pretty sure they lost a huge sum of cash on their entire Esport investment. BW and War3 were "hit" by the release of SC2 more than anything else...and of course the fact that you could make actual money there as a player. That was right after the first big economical bubble-burst in Esports, too. Hearthstone was never really an "Esports-game", yet Blizzard threw money at it. And Overwatch was designed mostly from the start to end up in OWL...which then of course failed in the end, but that seems more to be a problem with "Blizzard as the developer" and not "Blizzard the TO". And just a reminder, we are purely talking about "Blizzard the TO" here.
And yeah, pretty sure SC2 wouldn't have done better without Blizzard money. In fact, the game would probably looked like it does today for ten years instead. So basically worse, since I can't imagine 14-year-old Maru and 15-year old Reynor jumping into SC2 if you are playing for peanuts most of the time. Especially Maru would have certainly done something different...who knows, maybe he would be in LoL now not winning Worlds.
3. Please they certainly did. They started challenging them on liscensing, and were threatening to give GOM control over broadcasting and tournaments. You are right broodwar wasn't doing great, crazy how a game that came out 15 years later and had to expansions isn't doing great right now in far less time. And that BW scene yeah it shrunk a bit, but it was due to a Korean recession moreso than anything else, not due to suddenly people not wanting to watch. And since it was largely fueled by massive companies that were shortening their budgets that was the downfall of those teams. And you're right they didn't make some massive come back because they were thwarted and killed off by moves Blizzard made.
You really should read-up on the entire thing, because it really didn't happen (as far as we publicly know) as you think. It wasn't Blizzard pummeling on poor Kespa/OGN. In fact, Kespa started first, bullying GomTV, trying to get rid of it by blocking their players to compete in their events - which was still in BroodWar btw. The only "moves" Blizzard did to destroy the old system was a)release a new game...shame on them and b)not just give in into all demands Kespa made. Not saying Blizzard was completly innocent, they certainly did come in strong, being the first who actually said "fuck this, this our game, we have the rights to everything related to it"...a thing anyone else does by now, too.
4. Nobody said only held in area where the best talent is, but they are largely located nearer to the population center. We aren't hosting crossfire tournaments here in NA. And just because CS2 has a few one offs and a rotation major local doesn't change the fact that like 85% of the events are in EU or somewhat EU centric. As for the global entities for Valorant/LoL they fully support their own structure, and because all of the participants are taken care of they can be as global as they please. Strange though they didn't have to exit LoL, oh that's right because they built it up themselves, and when they did take over, they shouldered the responsibility of carrying it through.
It aren't "a few". ESL as the forerunner especially is trying to make the competition as global as possible. Sure, EU is still holding the majority, but might I remind you that the EU (not to mention Europe as a whole) alone has eight to nine times the residents of South Korea. And the fanbase here for Counterstrike is gigantic. So it makes sense. What's not making sense is hosting everything SC2-related in Korea...
And was for the LoL/Valo thing...of course Riot didn't kill off LoL for Valo. For one, they are entirely different genres, so they are not competing with each other, but instead support each other. And also...Blizzard didn't kill off BW in Korea (everywhere else, again, it was dead anyway). They didn't say "Kespa has to close down everything". It just became hugely unsuistanable with SC2 being around, the economical crisis and companies in Korea probalby wanting to jump onto the new ship.
5. Again each team is different in CS2. Is faze profitable? No, they went broke and had to sell themselves from over extending. Are vitality/G2? Nope. But are Mouz/VP/Ence/Col/Heroic/Mongolz? Yup. The teams that are buying trophies are the broke ones. But there are sustainable teams, especially MOUZ who is winning in all regards. They're farming bonus sticker money, selling off players, and have a budget roster, while winning events. But that depends on how you run your team, but there certainly are avenues to be profitable in CS2 without reliance on sticker money.
Pretty sure Heroic is broke af aswell. And the financial situation of MOUZ for example remains to be seen. I would say they are holding up and are not in crisis, but I personally wouldn't bet money that they are profitable to a bigger degree. But I don't want to digress into this too much further, since I honestly can't even remember why we started this particular part of the debate and how it was linked to Starcraft ._.
Closing thoughts:
First of all, I think Blizzard did one huge mistake...and ironically, it was the exact opposite of what you think. Blizzard tried to have the global appeal of WC3, but still wanted Korea to enjoy its highly organized "Bubble". Sadly, that might have let to them not winning on either side of the bracket. Riot did the opposite: Riot always said "fuck it Korea, you have the best players and teams, but you don't get any special treatment". Sure, Korea often gets the most slots for Worlds, but they are not hugely different compared to China or EMEA. And the LCK is paying out almost the same money as the LEC. And nobody there is complaining "buhu, the tenth placed team in Korea *might* (we honestly don't know) be better than the winnier of LEC, so unfair!". Okay, we do know, G2 would wreck the bottom half of LCK-teams, but anyway. That led to a global scene, a global appeal. EMEA-fans can enjoy their hometown teams, with amazingly produced games. And we can cheer for our times at global competitions, even when they usually get destroyed by the topdogs of Korea and China. You don't need the Proleague-Kespa-Bubble.
if I had to guess, I would say you are more of a BroodWar than SC2 fan, right? And it is fine if you are pissed at the developer Blizzard, I'm not arguing there. But when it comes to supporting Esports, especially Starcraft, you are hugely unfair. And I still get the feeling you are somehow mad that Blizzard didn't release SC2 and then said "so and now Kespa gets one million bucks a year to continue to run BroodWar, because that's totally reasonable!" I get that, I was mad in 2010 aswell, when players, TOs and viewers alike run away from WC3 towards SC2. But you can't expect Blizzard to just throw away money for everything, just so that a few people are happy and get their own game supported.
I'm not sure Microsoft is pumping money into AOE2 like you think. I know they work a lot with T90 and support his prize pools voluntarily, but maybe I don't know everything about the AOE2 tournament scene. If I remember a lot of their S tier events are run by individuals not even TOs and I'm not sure if there is any real support from Microsoft. As for following the rules all of them follow the rules anyway and I doubt microsoft has to say anything. Not that they couldn't, but if your main Casters at Redbull are the TOs you're trying to fuck over in that scene you're going to have a bad time. This btw is in regard to T90 and Nilli(i think spelling***) both holding their own S tier events in that space.
Yes, minuscule sum. They funded the WCS for years and the GSL/GOM from the get go sure. Riot/Valve are putting on events every year, with prize pools that surpass anything Blizzard has done greatly. They also never backed down, they're still doing it right now despite spending far more money.
As for OWL they collected millions in franchise fees to run an event while clipping anyone else's shot of running an event. You're claiming that Blizzard the developer and that isn't the case. It was the blizzard the TO ran their tournament into the ground.
As for 14 year old Maru and 15 year old Reynor, I'm sure every little kid playing a video game is thinking about the potential esports implications of the video game he likes lol..... And it is funny there were events run without Blizzard for the longest that weren't offering "peanuts" as you put it with ZERO blizzard support.
I think you read the legal portion of what happened because technically Blizzard was legally right in what they did. But they did that in order to force their hands in everything. You can pretend it was just about the legal aspect, but it wasn't. You are right though KESPA were dicks as well, but that was the way they were forced to fight the inevitable. In the end KESPA's only move at the time was to try and hold their players back, but it wasn't going to work, and giving a TO power over the game in that country was always going to lead down that road.
Again I never said they should hold every SC2 match in Korea, they just didn't need to mess with the systems in place they had no part of for over a decade. And I also never said Riot killed off LOL for Valo. It was more in terms of they didn't actively try to kill of entities that existed. Also those they did harm, they basically hired to run the LoL/Valorant product. Much different than Blizzard's approach. And you're right they didn't order KESPA to close down. Just pay the liscensing fees, and don't compete with GOM ever, even though they're running something 24/7, and if you attempt to hold back your players from them, then the licensing fee will be increased, oh and whatever rules GOM wants to make up to mess with you, you'll need to follow.
Heroic - Not broke, for sure a budget team, but is profitable. Just sold off the snakes and Cadian. MOUZ same to a lesser extend. The main financial line in CS in terms of individual CS teams being profitable is simply salary for the players.
In general sure, I like BW more so than SC2, but that doesn't change anything really. But overall I'm more of an esports fan of many titles. I don't get how anything is unfair though. I'm not mad that Blizzard didn't give KESPA money or OSL/MSL/Proleague. I'm mad they messed up their system on purpose to kill them off. I'm mad they were leeches in esports, and it is hilarious that despite being the last ones in are the first ones out after killing off competition to leech even more out of the scene. KESPA managed to stay afloat during a recession where their finances depended on that exact same economy. Blizzard however lasted less time in esports than KESPA, while not suffering from that same type of issue lol. Best part is nobody actually needed Blizzard's support. MLG existed, Dreamhacks, IEM, PGL, ESL, NASL.
I give you a broad interest in Esports, but I get the feeling you are not particularly in-depth about it, is that possible?
First of all, if you look at the sponsors for any S-Tier Age of Empires 2 tournament, you will always find either Microsoft or Worlds Edge...which is still Microsoft. Microsoft literally employed Nili as "Tournament Director". He was the one managing funding and organizing the schedule...a schedule anyone who wants to get money from Microsoft. The only TO that isn't bound to this is RedBull, because...well, it is RedBull. But even THEY answer to Microsoft scheduling.
Riot is putting in millions into LoL Esports because the game makes that much. SC2 never produced so much money, because it wasn't originally designed to generate revenue. Riot was revolutionary with their idea of a F2P game that still brings in millions. Do you want to know how little money SC2 made for Blizzard? Wings of Liberty alone got outperformed by a stupid looking Mount in WoW. Don't believe me? Ask one of the devs. Now imagine how freaking much money Riot generates with their skins and what not... Blizzard paid on and on for SC2, probably losing a sizeable amount of money. And then you come along "hurrdurr they should have put in more money for no reason".
And yes, games before 2010 often just offered "peanuts", especially RTS. Again, teams paid that difference. Teams that ruined themselves around the economic crisis. And even those "peanuts" were debatable to be paid or not.
Blizzard was legally and morally correct. The only option there was to not fight Kespa was to not release SC2 at all...well, that would have been great for the game, right?
You are also incorrect that Valorant "didn't destroy anything" Before the VCT started, multiple TOs run a plethora of events. All of these events are dead now because of the VCT. And LoL was even part of Katowice once upon a time...not anymore. Now even the Saudis have to fight to even get LoL to EWC. So weird how every Developer does the exact same things Blizzard does...they just do it better. or rather, Blizzard usually wasn't ruthless enough.
Heroic is broke as hell mate. Their stocks were in the shits, I think they even de-listed themselves, buying the stocks back up? Doing good in tournaments and being profitable are two very different things.
Maybe SC2 didn't need Blizzards money. But equally possible no one in 2010+ invests into SC2 without Blizzard either. Because if the TO isn't putting in any money, And please remember that MLG for example started out with rather tame prizepools. Not to mention that there isn't a GSL without Blizzard money. I can promise you however, without Blizzard money, there is no global competition. There is no ESL Pro Tour. Because there wouldn't have been a scene big enough to be viable for that. You would have your Kespa-run korean tournaments, probably without an english stream, but hey, who needs viewers from outside Koreas....not that it would have been run on OGN, since they went out of business. And teams still drop out of Proleague. I mean, most ex-Proleagues even dropped out of LoL, which is much more sustainable.
On June 27 2024 13:28 NoobSkills wrote: 1. Nobody said you had to eliminate it entirely or even take half. But again this wasn't the only issue with Blizzard's preference and style of ruining their esports titles. And you don't know that it would have lead to anything except for a more stable scene. Perhaps instead eliminating WCS all together and sponsoring the actual TO's instead and forcing everyone to adhere to a schedule they set. There would still be an advantage to EU/NA as those events would be held there and participated in by most of the players. And while you say "barely anyone cared about" it was a 15 year old game at the time. There was still plenty of global interest for that game, but if there really was no interest why did they feel the need to cut out it's legs?
On a much smaller scale than SC2, Microsoft is currently pumping money into AoE 2. They don't organize anything themselves, they just fund TOs out of the community (mostly streamers, so not companies like ESL). And you know what? Those TOs STILL have to adhere to Microsofts schedule. Because wow, Microsoft doesn't want two S-Tier tournaments at the same time, practically splitting the pro-players in half and weakening the effect of each tournament. So even IF Blizzard would have been crazy enough to just throw money at multiple TOs to host their own events, all of these TOs still would have done everything aligned with Blizzards interests. You can't have the money without the say...
2. Blizzard paid what? A miniscule sum of money over 10 years leeching off the competetive and tournament scene they did absolutely nothing to build? They saw that they were finally about to make money and came to siphon off every drop they could possible get. Eliminating competition for whoever was going to pay them the most. It isn't the least bit disrespectful, more of an accurate assessment of the worth of Blizzard in esports. Hearthstone, SC2, War3, BW, OWL, have all but died or are shadows of their formerselves becuase of Blizzard's interference. SC2 probably would have not only done better without them, but would be stronger still as well.
Miniscule sum? Are you high or something? Blizzard funded WCS for years, they funded GSL right from the get-go (in part so it could even hold up against OGN/Kespa). And even after they jumped out, they still paid ESl for another two years before finally leaving. They didn't "siphon" anything. Pretty sure they lost a huge sum of cash on their entire Esport investment. BW and War3 were "hit" by the release of SC2 more than anything else...and of course the fact that you could make actual money there as a player. That was right after the first big economical bubble-burst in Esports, too. Hearthstone was never really an "Esports-game", yet Blizzard threw money at it. And Overwatch was designed mostly from the start to end up in OWL...which then of course failed in the end, but that seems more to be a problem with "Blizzard as the developer" and not "Blizzard the TO". And just a reminder, we are purely talking about "Blizzard the TO" here.
And yeah, pretty sure SC2 wouldn't have done better without Blizzard money. In fact, the game would probably looked like it does today for ten years instead. So basically worse, since I can't imagine 14-year-old Maru and 15-year old Reynor jumping into SC2 if you are playing for peanuts most of the time. Especially Maru would have certainly done something different...who knows, maybe he would be in LoL now not winning Worlds.
3. Please they certainly did. They started challenging them on liscensing, and were threatening to give GOM control over broadcasting and tournaments. You are right broodwar wasn't doing great, crazy how a game that came out 15 years later and had to expansions isn't doing great right now in far less time. And that BW scene yeah it shrunk a bit, but it was due to a Korean recession moreso than anything else, not due to suddenly people not wanting to watch. And since it was largely fueled by massive companies that were shortening their budgets that was the downfall of those teams. And you're right they didn't make some massive come back because they were thwarted and killed off by moves Blizzard made.
You really should read-up on the entire thing, because it really didn't happen (as far as we publicly know) as you think. It wasn't Blizzard pummeling on poor Kespa/OGN. In fact, Kespa started first, bullying GomTV, trying to get rid of it by blocking their players to compete in their events - which was still in BroodWar btw. The only "moves" Blizzard did to destroy the old system was a)release a new game...shame on them and b)not just give in into all demands Kespa made. Not saying Blizzard was completly innocent, they certainly did come in strong, being the first who actually said "fuck this, this our game, we have the rights to everything related to it"...a thing anyone else does by now, too.
4. Nobody said only held in area where the best talent is, but they are largely located nearer to the population center. We aren't hosting crossfire tournaments here in NA. And just because CS2 has a few one offs and a rotation major local doesn't change the fact that like 85% of the events are in EU or somewhat EU centric. As for the global entities for Valorant/LoL they fully support their own structure, and because all of the participants are taken care of they can be as global as they please. Strange though they didn't have to exit LoL, oh that's right because they built it up themselves, and when they did take over, they shouldered the responsibility of carrying it through.
It aren't "a few". ESL as the forerunner especially is trying to make the competition as global as possible. Sure, EU is still holding the majority, but might I remind you that the EU (not to mention Europe as a whole) alone has eight to nine times the residents of South Korea. And the fanbase here for Counterstrike is gigantic. So it makes sense. What's not making sense is hosting everything SC2-related in Korea...
And was for the LoL/Valo thing...of course Riot didn't kill off LoL for Valo. For one, they are entirely different genres, so they are not competing with each other, but instead support each other. And also...Blizzard didn't kill off BW in Korea (everywhere else, again, it was dead anyway). They didn't say "Kespa has to close down everything". It just became hugely unsuistanable with SC2 being around, the economical crisis and companies in Korea probalby wanting to jump onto the new ship.
5. Again each team is different in CS2. Is faze profitable? No, they went broke and had to sell themselves from over extending. Are vitality/G2? Nope. But are Mouz/VP/Ence/Col/Heroic/Mongolz? Yup. The teams that are buying trophies are the broke ones. But there are sustainable teams, especially MOUZ who is winning in all regards. They're farming bonus sticker money, selling off players, and have a budget roster, while winning events. But that depends on how you run your team, but there certainly are avenues to be profitable in CS2 without reliance on sticker money.
Pretty sure Heroic is broke af aswell. And the financial situation of MOUZ for example remains to be seen. I would say they are holding up and are not in crisis, but I personally wouldn't bet money that they are profitable to a bigger degree. But I don't want to digress into this too much further, since I honestly can't even remember why we started this particular part of the debate and how it was linked to Starcraft ._.
Closing thoughts:
First of all, I think Blizzard did one huge mistake...and ironically, it was the exact opposite of what you think. Blizzard tried to have the global appeal of WC3, but still wanted Korea to enjoy its highly organized "Bubble". Sadly, that might have let to them not winning on either side of the bracket. Riot did the opposite: Riot always said "fuck it Korea, you have the best players and teams, but you don't get any special treatment". Sure, Korea often gets the most slots for Worlds, but they are not hugely different compared to China or EMEA. And the LCK is paying out almost the same money as the LEC. And nobody there is complaining "buhu, the tenth placed team in Korea *might* (we honestly don't know) be better than the winnier of LEC, so unfair!". Okay, we do know, G2 would wreck the bottom half of LCK-teams, but anyway. That led to a global scene, a global appeal. EMEA-fans can enjoy their hometown teams, with amazingly produced games. And we can cheer for our times at global competitions, even when they usually get destroyed by the topdogs of Korea and China. You don't need the Proleague-Kespa-Bubble.
if I had to guess, I would say you are more of a BroodWar than SC2 fan, right? And it is fine if you are pissed at the developer Blizzard, I'm not arguing there. But when it comes to supporting Esports, especially Starcraft, you are hugely unfair. And I still get the feeling you are somehow mad that Blizzard didn't release SC2 and then said "so and now Kespa gets one million bucks a year to continue to run BroodWar, because that's totally reasonable!" I get that, I was mad in 2010 aswell, when players, TOs and viewers alike run away from WC3 towards SC2. But you can't expect Blizzard to just throw away money for everything, just so that a few people are happy and get their own game supported.
I'm not sure Microsoft is pumping money into AOE2 like you think. I know they work a lot with T90 and support his prize pools voluntarily, but maybe I don't know everything about the AOE2 tournament scene. If I remember a lot of their S tier events are run by individuals not even TOs and I'm not sure if there is any real support from Microsoft. As for following the rules all of them follow the rules anyway and I doubt microsoft has to say anything. Not that they couldn't, but if your main Casters at Redbull are the TOs you're trying to fuck over in that scene you're going to have a bad time. This btw is in regard to T90 and Nilli(i think spelling***) both holding their own S tier events in that space.
Yes, minuscule sum. They funded the WCS for years and the GSL/GOM from the get go sure. Riot/Valve are putting on events every year, with prize pools that surpass anything Blizzard has done greatly. They also never backed down, they're still doing it right now despite spending far more money.
As for OWL they collected millions in franchise fees to run an event while clipping anyone else's shot of running an event. You're claiming that Blizzard the developer and that isn't the case. It was the blizzard the TO ran their tournament into the ground.
As for 14 year old Maru and 15 year old Reynor, I'm sure every little kid playing a video game is thinking about the potential esports implications of the video game he likes lol..... And it is funny there were events run without Blizzard for the longest that weren't offering "peanuts" as you put it with ZERO blizzard support.
I think you read the legal portion of what happened because technically Blizzard was legally right in what they did. But they did that in order to force their hands in everything. You can pretend it was just about the legal aspect, but it wasn't. You are right though KESPA were dicks as well, but that was the way they were forced to fight the inevitable. In the end KESPA's only move at the time was to try and hold their players back, but it wasn't going to work, and giving a TO power over the game in that country was always going to lead down that road.
Again I never said they should hold every SC2 match in Korea, they just didn't need to mess with the systems in place they had no part of for over a decade. And I also never said Riot killed off LOL for Valo. It was more in terms of they didn't actively try to kill of entities that existed. Also those they did harm, they basically hired to run the LoL/Valorant product. Much different than Blizzard's approach. And you're right they didn't order KESPA to close down. Just pay the liscensing fees, and don't compete with GOM ever, even though they're running something 24/7, and if you attempt to hold back your players from them, then the licensing fee will be increased, oh and whatever rules GOM wants to make up to mess with you, you'll need to follow.
Heroic - Not broke, for sure a budget team, but is profitable. Just sold off the snakes and Cadian. MOUZ same to a lesser extend. The main financial line in CS in terms of individual CS teams being profitable is simply salary for the players.
In general sure, I like BW more so than SC2, but that doesn't change anything really. But overall I'm more of an esports fan of many titles. I don't get how anything is unfair though. I'm not mad that Blizzard didn't give KESPA money or OSL/MSL/Proleague. I'm mad they messed up their system on purpose to kill them off. I'm mad they were leeches in esports, and it is hilarious that despite being the last ones in are the first ones out after killing off competition to leech even more out of the scene. KESPA managed to stay afloat during a recession where their finances depended on that exact same economy. Blizzard however lasted less time in esports than KESPA, while not suffering from that same type of issue lol. Best part is nobody actually needed Blizzard's support. MLG existed, Dreamhacks, IEM, PGL, ESL, NASL.
I give you a broad interest in Esports, but I get the feeling you are not particularly in-depth about it, is that possible?
First of all, if you look at the sponsors for any S-Tier Age of Empires 2 tournament, you will always find either Microsoft or Worlds Edge...which is still Microsoft. Microsoft literally employed Nili as "Tournament Director". He was the one managing funding and organizing the schedule...a schedule anyone who wants to get money from Microsoft. The only TO that isn't bound to this is RedBull, because...well, it is RedBull. But even THEY answer to Microsoft scheduling.
Riot is putting in millions into LoL Esports because the game makes that much. SC2 never produced so much money, because it wasn't originally designed to generate revenue. Riot was revolutionary with their idea of a F2P game that still brings in millions. Do you want to know how little money SC2 made for Blizzard? Wings of Liberty alone got outperformed by a stupid looking Mount in WoW. Don't believe me? Ask one of the devs. Now imagine how freaking much money Riot generates with their skins and what not... Blizzard paid on and on for SC2, probably losing a sizeable amount of money. And then you come along "hurrdurr they should have put in more money for no reason".
And yes, games before 2010 often just offered "peanuts", especially RTS. Again, teams paid that difference. Teams that ruined themselves around the economic crisis. And even those "peanuts" were debatable to be paid or not.
Blizzard was legally and morally correct. The only option there was to not fight Kespa was to not release SC2 at all...well, that would have been great for the game, right?
You are also incorrect that Valorant "didn't destroy anything" Before the VCT started, multiple TOs run a plethora of events. All of these events are dead now because of the VCT. And LoL was even part of Katowice once upon a time...not anymore. Now even the Saudis have to fight to even get LoL to EWC. So weird how every Developer does the exact same things Blizzard does...they just do it better. or rather, Blizzard usually wasn't ruthless enough.
Heroic is broke as hell mate. Their stocks were in the shits, I think they even de-listed themselves, buying the stocks back up? Doing good in tournaments and being profitable are two very different things.
Maybe SC2 didn't need Blizzards money. But equally possible no one in 2010+ invests into SC2 without Blizzard either. Because if the TO isn't putting in any money, And please remember that MLG for example started out with rather tame prizepools. Not to mention that there isn't a GSL without Blizzard money. I can promise you however, without Blizzard money, there is no global competition. There is no ESL Pro Tour. Because there wouldn't have been a scene big enough to be viable for that. You would have your Kespa-run korean tournaments, probably without an english stream, but hey, who needs viewers from outside Koreas....not that it would have been run on OGN, since they went out of business. And teams still drop out of Proleague. I mean, most ex-Proleagues even dropped out of LoL, which is much more sustainable.
]
Broad love of esports yes. Lack of knowledge, sure in some departments, but to that same sense no more than anyone else. Neither you nor I know what is in the contracts, liscensing agreements, or the technical requirements of anything that goes on. Sure, to some degree we get pieces of info, but never all of it. I mean even companies that are overall good influences in gaming/esports don't broadcast the vast majority of that information.
Again while there might have been an agreement in AOE with everyone at the request of Microsoft you don't know their entire financial involvement. Now Microsoft in this regard has actually been great in esports and they're not the leeches we've been talking about. But T90 was already running an approved hidden cup on his own w/o Microsoft, they just added to the pool because of the hype, and honestly that is amazing of them. They didn't try to stop nili and t90 from running events in order to have Microsoft Cup or give Redbull Series the advantage. As for how much some of these events got we have no clue, but the one leak wasn't even like 20%. Also Microsoft as part of their liscensing agreement be it maybe for free event could require their name plastered on the event with zero dollars contributed, but waiving a fee for holding an event. I'm not saying that is what they did because honestly Microsoft in this field as far as I can recall has been pretty stand up. I think MLG had Halo for nearly free and AOE not only has it been free, but they've also remastered and expanded the game so many times it is hard to keep track. As for scheduling again, just because someone might have been a coordinator of AOE, doesn't mean there were really even issues, especially considering how tiny AOE is. In some weird reality where Redbull tries to run their event at the same time as Hidden Cup or Apartment Cup, they'd probably be laughed off the planet.
Did they "lose" money? I mean they did their best to snipe off all the ad revenue, and licensing fees for events. Sure they funded some of it, but did they even actually lose money or pillage the bank accounts of everyone to break even in a scene where people were hosting events without them no issue for a decade? On a game series that earned them 1.2 billion +, they maybe spent 80 million at the very most back, but how much did the gain back? You claim they went broke doing it, but you have no access to their financials. And the comparison to a different title doesn't change that. Be it LoL or a WoW mount doing better. I don't remember MLG or ESL or Dreamhack or OGN/MBC crying about money, they just did better. And they didn't have the ability to squeeze out their competition.
I love how you keep it up with the hurr durr, but keep misquoting what I said in such a shitty way. Nobody said to not release SC2. And yes, not messing with KESPA would have been a good start. They could have put on their big boy pants and made a real scene out of their own work and if it were the better option they would have easily got the views and players. You indicate in some way that it would have been worse if they had fucked off, but we won't know because that isn't what happened. Meanwhile IEM and GSL and ASL still exist without Blizzard, despite them messing with everything. Imagine being so awful at what you're doing that you have to exit the space, while the people who were there before you with far less money and backing are still kicking years later, that is if you didn't outright kill them while you existed to prop up your existence. But yeah, blizzard was good for esports LOL, OWL finished, SC2 disappeared, WAR3 carried without their existence.
You mean those other massive billion dollar companies, who worked with those other companies to run their tournaments, but eventually took over, directly paying players, and those assets of the TOs to run their own event series? Crazy how those did really well keeping the best going, while Blizzard killing off the competition, to cheap out, and to back end take all profit out of everything didn't make it work. Yes, they did it better those other companies, they weren't leeching off others success coming in just to steal profit, they said let's do an even better job and hire those talents, and lets take care of our players an existence in the scene. Which is why they're still standing, despite spending so much more to do all of that.
Sorry, but you have no clue how anything goes if Blizzard didn't get involved. You cite tame prize pools, but there were events held with big prize pools with the boost to twitch and viewership that weren't assisted by Blizzard. Nor do you even know if Blizzard helped any even fund their prize pool or to what degree that happened. And you claim that they wouldn't have adapted the Korean way or something along those lines, but with dreamhacks and MLGs and IEMs and ESLs doing well they probably would have joined on board, especially at the minimal cost of having a few casters on board. But what we do know is that Blizzard made it hard for others to exist and they succeeded in that, they monopolized, and leeched off the other successful events up until no more money could be sucked out of the scene. But go on keep hyping them up for lasting less time than everyone else in the same atmosphere with a far more predatory existence than all of the rest.
On June 27 2024 04:29 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: [quote]
So beating more players is more important than the quality of players beaten? And prep tournies are inherently harder? It depends which way you look at it.
Neither has a clear answer and there are varying opinions on each.
Sure, the top players may face better prepared lesser players, thus the difference in skill can be brought closer when they play. That is hard. But it is also harder for lesser players to beat top players in a weekender tournament and win it with less prep. Serral beating Oliveira, herO, and Maru is not an easy path for anyone, especially with less time to prep. Especially especially when 1 of them is Maru.
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run.
Well if you don't want to engage to the debate, then don't. But if you do and you tell me that Maru's GSL run was easier than Serral Dallas run, I just hard disagree. They are comparable.
There are already things to factor in beside opponents
Dallas is at an international larger stage, higher prize money, and more pressure
GSL is basically a small tournament in a small venue in Korea
People tune in to watch Serral, he is must see television, Mr box office
We all know Maru is the big fish in Korea, but outside Korea he becomes a small fish. He constantly losing to non Korean players. Remember when cyan rekted him? Lol
In which world Nice and Oliveira are better SC2 players than Cure, soO, Shin and Cure??
Besides that yeah, the depth of the tournament (aka number of matches one has to play to get the title) is an important factor.
Maru had 7 matches in S1 because he lost 0-2 to herO not the tournament is good or hard, you know that factordon’t you? Classic lost to Oliveira in Dalllas and current soO is just a tier 2 Zerg not even close to Oliveira. It’s no doubt Serral’s run in Dallas is much much more impressive than Maru GSL S1.
That is a weird twisted logic you employ. By your logic Oliveria is the 2nd best non-korean and Stats is better than Clem.
Your logic is twisted, I don’t know if Oliveira was the second best non Korean but I know he did performed much better in facing Serral than any other Terran players since IEM Katowice, he beaten Reynor 3-1 and he just beat Dark 2-1showing he is very strong in TvZ at that time. No players besides hero in GSL has given Maru so much great pressure as Oliveira given to Serral. But hero was also beaten by Serral in Dallas and Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely in a different level of other Koreans. If you think Maru is nothing but on the same level of Shin Cure ByuN Solar , and beating Maru is not a greater task than beating these players, feel free to do so I don’t care.
The game has more dimensions other than measuring how much "presure" a player gives to Serral to judge their overall skill in the game. Besides, Olivera said himself that most of it its due to the familiarity he has practicing vs Serral.
What I think is not that Maru is at the same level than Shin/Cure/Buyun/Solar. What I said is this:
1) The player field level experienced at Dallas by the winner is similar to the playerfield level experienced by the GSL winner.
2) Both of the winners of GSL and Dallas had a similar amount of games they had to win to achieve the title.
3) When one looks at the players that have reached the playoffs of Dallas, 6 out of 8 are players which participated in the current edition of GSL.
Do you agree then that winning Dallas is more or less the same as winning this year's edition of GSL?
1. What on Earth tells you current GSL is comparable to ESL Dallas? Serral has beaten Maru, who is completely on a different level than other Koreans. Maru can’t beat himself, the strongest opponent is hero, who also lost to Serral so Maru’s GSL already lost. 2. Oliveira’s TvZ is the best or at least one of the best in the world at this second. I said he not only gave Serral much more pressure than Maru, but also beat Reynor and Dark recently. So beating Oliveira is also a great achievement than beating Cure ByuN soO etc, who had never won a single series against Serral and Dark in a really long time.
1. I see, so you treat SC2 are a rock paper scissor game between players to rank them. Ok, very reasonable. 2. You speak as if Oliveria won vs Serral, he didnt, he lost. And Oliveira regularly trades series between the players you mention.
Bro It's you want to compare GSL with ESL spring, not me. I just told you Maru's GSL run is less difficult than Serral's ESL run.
Well if you don't want to engage to the debate, then don't. But if you do and you tell me that Maru's GSL run was easier than Serral Dallas run, I just hard disagree. They are comparable.
There are already things to factor in beside opponents
Dallas is at an international larger stage, higher prize money, and more pressure
GSL is basically a small tournament in a small venue in Korea
People tune in to watch Serral, he is must see television, Mr box office
We all know Maru is the big fish in Korea, but outside Korea he becomes a small fish. He constantly losing to non Korean players. Remember when cyan rekted him? Lol
Starcraft 2 tournaments are "small fish" tournaments though, no matter international or Korea. Heck, even the biggest prizepool ever at EWC of 1m$ is small fish compared to other esport titles. The viewership is extremely low even for the biggest events such as IEM Katowice, compared to the popular esport titles.
Difference between #1 and #2 at Dallas Spring in which Maru lost to Serral is 8k$, that's pocket money for both of them who won more than 1m$ in prizepool alone, there is not particular pressure -> you could make that argument for Katowice since Maru has yet to win a WC that isn't WESG, and there is actually a meaningful prize pool difference. But Dallas spring? It's probably more of a vacation/holidays trip in the USA for them
You can see though that the prizepool of EWC (and WESG) in the past is meaningful for the players: that's imo why we see Rogue improve at a rapid pace, he'll probably try to qualify for EWC through the Open Qualifier in early July. I still hope to see Maru deliver a better battle vs Serral if they were to meet at EWC, Dallas final was underwhelming.
On June 28 2024 07:41 Cactus66 wrote: I don't know why you guys are putting so much effort into comparing Maru's GSL path vs Serral's spring path. If you wanted to judge the tournament difficulty by path you would compare Maru's GSL path to Maru's spring path. That properly shows the difficulty of the tournament to win from Maru's perspective. And the conclusion you can draw from that exercise is tournaments with Serral in them are generally harder to win than tournaments without Serral in them.
Serral will typically have the easiesr path compared to everyone else in the tournament. He's usually the top seed, but most importantly he doesn't have to play Serral.
Oh absolutely this, Maru is a heavy heavy favourite against any player not named Serral.
They're #1 and #2 players in the world and have been since 2018, but Serral has been stronger and has shown to be the more talented player, even not attending a good chunk of tournaments people consider "relevant" he still has by far the most impressive resume.
If Maru had Mvp's WoL, or Life/Innovations HOTS, I'd almost understand putting him as #1 (I wouldn't really because those expansion lasted 2 years), but he peaked at the same time Serral did, we get to watch them duke it out.
Rogue should not even be brought up for #1 and #2, when you factor chance of opportunity you will see Rogue gets dunked on so fucking much, Dark makes RO4 on premier's more often than Rogue does(!!!!!), Serral obviously has higher rate of #1, RO2, RO4, RO8 than anyone else, he's also outside of Korea which actually is hardly brought up these days, but during 2017-2020 he hardly had worthy up to par opponents for some races.
On June 28 2024 07:41 Cactus66 wrote: I don't know why you guys are putting so much effort into comparing Maru's GSL path vs Serral's spring path. If you wanted to judge the tournament difficulty by path you would compare Maru's GSL path to Maru's spring path. That properly shows the difficulty of the tournament to win from Maru's perspective. And the conclusion you can draw from that exercise is tournaments with Serral in them are generally harder to win than tournaments without Serral in them.
Serral will typically have the easiesr path compared to everyone else in the tournament. He's usually the top seed, but most importantly he doesn't have to play Serral.
If Maru had Mvp's WoL, or Life/Innovations HOTS, I'd almost understand putting him as #1 (I wouldn't really because those expansion lasted 2 years), but he peaked at the same time Serral did, we get to watch them duke it out.
Are you really saying that Maru with 8 more premier wins during HotS or WoL including 1-2 world championships and random weekenders would still not be the goat in your eyes? With that his trophy list would completely eclipse Serral's. That's some crazy bias towards Serral.
On June 28 2024 07:41 Cactus66 wrote: I don't know why you guys are putting so much effort into comparing Maru's GSL path vs Serral's spring path. If you wanted to judge the tournament difficulty by path you would compare Maru's GSL path to Maru's spring path. That properly shows the difficulty of the tournament to win from Maru's perspective. And the conclusion you can draw from that exercise is tournaments with Serral in them are generally harder to win than tournaments without Serral in them.
Serral will typically have the easiesr path compared to everyone else in the tournament. He's usually the top seed, but most importantly he doesn't have to play Serral.
If Maru had Mvp's WoL, or Life/Innovations HOTS, I'd almost understand putting him as #1 (I wouldn't really because those expansion lasted 2 years), but he peaked at the same time Serral did, we get to watch them duke it out.
Are you really saying that Maru with 8 more premier wins during HotS or WoL including 1-2 world championships and random weekenders would still not be the goat in your eyes? With that his trophy list would completely eclipse Serral's. That's some crazy bias towards Serral.
It wouldn't even be a discussion. In fact, if you removed Maru from the equation and tacked INnoVation's 2012-2017 peak onto Mvp's WoL results, there wouldn't be a discussion either.
He'd have 7 Code S/SSL wins and another three final appearances while the next best player, NesTea, only had three wins and had retired a half decade before. As for the rest of the world, there wasn't another player with more than two KIL wins. Add in a top 5 Proleague resume and a boatload of weekender wins, and you have an unimpeachable resume (I say this while admitting that I also place a lot of value on being the first to do something, such as soO's four straight finals in 2013-14, sOs' trio of World championship between 2013 and 2015, Mvp's 2011 run, NesTea's back to back wins and INnoVation being the first to win a KIL for the fourth time in 2017).
On June 28 2024 07:41 Cactus66 wrote: I don't know why you guys are putting so much effort into comparing Maru's GSL path vs Serral's spring path. If you wanted to judge the tournament difficulty by path you would compare Maru's GSL path to Maru's spring path. That properly shows the difficulty of the tournament to win from Maru's perspective. And the conclusion you can draw from that exercise is tournaments with Serral in them are generally harder to win than tournaments without Serral in them.
Serral will typically have the easiesr path compared to everyone else in the tournament. He's usually the top seed, but most importantly he doesn't have to play Serral.
If Maru had Mvp's WoL, or Life/Innovations HOTS, I'd almost understand putting him as #1 (I wouldn't really because those expansion lasted 2 years), but he peaked at the same time Serral did, we get to watch them duke it out.
Are you really saying that Maru with 8 more premier wins during HotS or WoL including 1-2 world championships and random weekenders would still not be the goat in your eyes? With that his trophy list would completely eclipse Serral's. That's some crazy bias towards Serral.
You had a GSL every month or so back in the day, Mvp wasn't nearly as dominant as Serral has been, his winrate records pale in comparison to Serral, Serral not only has better winrate vs koreans but he also faces better Koreans on average than Mvp did, due to Qualifiers/early GSL rounds.
But if Mvp's WoL was Maru's, maru would actually have a couple years he was the best player in the world, right now he has arguably a few semesters sprinkled throughout his carreer.
Again, 99% of this thread focus on whatever noise they like, I'm just looking at who is actually stomping the competition the hardest and longest, and it's Joona Sotala undisputed, and no one is even close.
This should have ended the goat discussion weeks ago:
On June 28 2024 07:41 Cactus66 wrote: I don't know why you guys are putting so much effort into comparing Maru's GSL path vs Serral's spring path. If you wanted to judge the tournament difficulty by path you would compare Maru's GSL path to Maru's spring path. That properly shows the difficulty of the tournament to win from Maru's perspective. And the conclusion you can draw from that exercise is tournaments with Serral in them are generally harder to win than tournaments without Serral in them.
Serral will typically have the easiesr path compared to everyone else in the tournament. He's usually the top seed, but most importantly he doesn't have to play Serral.
If Maru had Mvp's WoL, or Life/Innovations HOTS, I'd almost understand putting him as #1 (I wouldn't really because those expansion lasted 2 years), but he peaked at the same time Serral did, we get to watch them duke it out.
Are you really saying that Maru with 8 more premier wins during HotS or WoL including 1-2 world championships and random weekenders would still not be the goat in your eyes? With that his trophy list would completely eclipse Serral's. That's some crazy bias towards Serral.
You had a GSL every month or so back in the day, Mvp wasn't nearly as dominant as Serral has been, his winrate records pale in comparison to Serral, Serral not only has better winrate vs koreans but he also faces better Koreans on average than Mvp did, due to Qualifiers/early GSL rounds.
But if Mvp's WoL was Maru's, maru would actually have a couple years he was the best player in the world, right now he has arguably a few semesters sprinkled throughout his carreer.
Again, 99% of this thread focus on whatever noise they like, I'm just looking at who is actually stomping the competition the hardest and longest, and it's Joona Sotala undisputed, and no one is even close.
This should have ended the goat discussion weeks ago:
Can I ask what is the source of this picture? It’s fun
On June 28 2024 07:41 Cactus66 wrote: I don't know why you guys are putting so much effort into comparing Maru's GSL path vs Serral's spring path. If you wanted to judge the tournament difficulty by path you would compare Maru's GSL path to Maru's spring path. That properly shows the difficulty of the tournament to win from Maru's perspective. And the conclusion you can draw from that exercise is tournaments with Serral in them are generally harder to win than tournaments without Serral in them.
Serral will typically have the easiesr path compared to everyone else in the tournament. He's usually the top seed, but most importantly he doesn't have to play Serral.
If Maru had Mvp's WoL, or Life/Innovations HOTS, I'd almost understand putting him as #1 (I wouldn't really because those expansion lasted 2 years), but he peaked at the same time Serral did, we get to watch them duke it out.
Are you really saying that Maru with 8 more premier wins during HotS or WoL including 1-2 world championships and random weekenders would still not be the goat in your eyes? With that his trophy list would completely eclipse Serral's. That's some crazy bias towards Serral.
You had a GSL every month or so back in the day, Mvp wasn't nearly as dominant as Serral has been, his winrate records pale in comparison to Serral, Serral not only has better winrate vs koreans but he also faces better Koreans on average than Mvp did, due to Qualifiers/early GSL rounds.
But if Mvp's WoL was Maru's, maru would actually have a couple years he was the best player in the world, right now he has arguably a few semesters sprinkled throughout his carreer.
Again, 99% of this thread focus on whatever noise they like, I'm just looking at who is actually stomping the competition the hardest and longest, and it's Joona Sotala undisputed, and no one is even close.
This should have ended the goat discussion weeks ago:
Can I ask what is the source of this picture? It’s fun
Somebody who fucked up numerous numbers in the making of it
On June 28 2024 07:41 Cactus66 wrote: I don't know why you guys are putting so much effort into comparing Maru's GSL path vs Serral's spring path. If you wanted to judge the tournament difficulty by path you would compare Maru's GSL path to Maru's spring path. That properly shows the difficulty of the tournament to win from Maru's perspective. And the conclusion you can draw from that exercise is tournaments with Serral in them are generally harder to win than tournaments without Serral in them.
Serral will typically have the easiesr path compared to everyone else in the tournament. He's usually the top seed, but most importantly he doesn't have to play Serral.
If Maru had Mvp's WoL, or Life/Innovations HOTS, I'd almost understand putting him as #1 (I wouldn't really because those expansion lasted 2 years), but he peaked at the same time Serral did, we get to watch them duke it out.
Are you really saying that Maru with 8 more premier wins during HotS or WoL including 1-2 world championships and random weekenders would still not be the goat in your eyes? With that his trophy list would completely eclipse Serral's. That's some crazy bias towards Serral.
You had a GSL every month or so back in the day, Mvp wasn't nearly as dominant as Serral has been, his winrate records pale in comparison to Serral, Serral not only has better winrate vs koreans but he also faces better Koreans on average than Mvp did, due to Qualifiers/early GSL rounds.
But if Mvp's WoL was Maru's, maru would actually have a couple years he was the best player in the world, right now he has arguably a few semesters sprinkled throughout his carreer.
Again, 99% of this thread focus on whatever noise they like, I'm just looking at who is actually stomping the competition the hardest and longest, and it's Joona Sotala undisputed, and no one is even close.
This should have ended the goat discussion weeks ago:
Can I ask what is the source of this picture? It’s fun
Somebody who fucked up numerous numbers in the making of it
On June 28 2024 07:41 Cactus66 wrote: I don't know why you guys are putting so much effort into comparing Maru's GSL path vs Serral's spring path. If you wanted to judge the tournament difficulty by path you would compare Maru's GSL path to Maru's spring path. That properly shows the difficulty of the tournament to win from Maru's perspective. And the conclusion you can draw from that exercise is tournaments with Serral in them are generally harder to win than tournaments without Serral in them.
Serral will typically have the easiesr path compared to everyone else in the tournament. He's usually the top seed, but most importantly he doesn't have to play Serral.
If Maru had Mvp's WoL, or Life/Innovations HOTS, I'd almost understand putting him as #1 (I wouldn't really because those expansion lasted 2 years), but he peaked at the same time Serral did, we get to watch them duke it out.
Are you really saying that Maru with 8 more premier wins during HotS or WoL including 1-2 world championships and random weekenders would still not be the goat in your eyes? With that his trophy list would completely eclipse Serral's. That's some crazy bias towards Serral.
You had a GSL every month or so back in the day, Mvp wasn't nearly as dominant as Serral has been, his winrate records pale in comparison to Serral, Serral not only has better winrate vs koreans but he also faces better Koreans on average than Mvp did, due to Qualifiers/early GSL rounds.
But if Mvp's WoL was Maru's, maru would actually have a couple years he was the best player in the world, right now he has arguably a few semesters sprinkled throughout his carreer.
Again, 99% of this thread focus on whatever noise they like, I'm just looking at who is actually stomping the competition the hardest and longest, and it's Joona Sotala undisputed, and no one is even close.
This should have ended the goat discussion weeks ago:
Can I ask what is the source of this picture? It’s fun
Somebody who fucked up numerous numbers in the making of it
EPT
.]
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/rUpEjhr.png)
