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On July 17 2025 06:13 PremoBeats wrote:
And as there were 4 times as many tournaments held in that era, I'd suggest multiplying it by another 4. Then the logic is fool-proof.. 2x2x4=16.
You use the same logic, only a 1,2 mutliplier, so I'm not sure you can even criticize me. But point taken, many tournaments also mean more opportunities, or more spread out player pool. But there is also quite some money inflation when you see the prize pools of 2016+
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On July 19 2025 01:57 ejozl wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2025 06:13 PremoBeats wrote:
And as there were 4 times as many tournaments held in that era, I'd suggest multiplying it by another 4. Then the logic is fool-proof.. 2x2x4=16. You use the same logic, only a 1,2 mutliplier, so I'm not sure you can even criticize me. But point taken, many tournaments also mean more opportunities, or more spread out player pool. But there is also quite some money inflation when you see the prize pools of 2016+
What do you mean by inflation of prize pools 2016+?
The most prize money spent was by far in 2012... the most prize money spent in a 3 year period was 2012-2014. The fewest amounts were spent (after the roughly 800k in 2010 at the beginning of the game) from 2020-2024 - where contrary to 2011-2019 - not even 3 Million or less than a third were handed out. 2021-2023 marks the period with the least money being spent in prize pools in a 3 year period.
I mean... we can go through each and every angle as to what differentiates our reasonings for arriving at certain subjective multipliers... But as your methodology is not very sound to begin with on several fronts (*) , I'd rather keep digging into more data to work on my update.
*: For example you use (prize money won per race)/(total amount of money spent) as an "objective" denominator for balance, which is totally skewed by a couple of top players, or even the results of non-top-tier-tournaments where the race balance is completely different. Just to make this point real quick:
A much better way to correct for balance would be to look at Premier Tournaments where the top of the top have participated. The map win ratios of TvZ, ZvP and PvT could be calculated and a percentile rank inversion could be used for the results. This also faces the same problem as your methodology in terms of players punishing themselves with good outcomes, but to a much lesser extent. If - for example - Maru pushes Terran in 2018 with 78% win rates in non-mirrors in 55 out of 1000 maps against an overall 50% Terran win rate, the effect is a lot lesser than if he wins 10% of the total money and 40% of the money that Terran won.
A simple comparison: For 2018 I arrive at a multiplier for Terran of 0,4832, yours should be at 0,2618 (949k/ 3.625k). As explained before: For our cohort of best players, this also includes completely skewed results form non S-tier tournaments and you already are off about 22 percentage points.
But not even that.. as explained above, the total amount spent was at a third of what it has been post 2019. If you didn't somehow correct for that fact, it is a big oversight in the methodology.
While prize money is sensitive to outliers, historically inconsistent and further completely set off by a couple of high prize tournaments, your whole idea of not even quantifying quality or numbers in any meaningful way in your different eras and simply doubling the result... I mean... you should know that it is absolutely ridiculous, no? I was asked to redo my methodology cause Rogue was placed outside of the top 5, yet you have the player whom probably every SCII fan agrees is at least in the the top 3, outside of the top 10... didn't you ever think that there could be some things wrong with it 
These are already 3 very big issues with your methodology by simply scratching at the surface.
Now comparing it to my "subjective" result: I gave multiple reasons as to why different metrics need different era-multipliers and used simulation-based probabilistic models to see which multipliers should be appropriate. As I said several times before in this thread: I am happy to discuss them, if you think my logic or calculations have flaws.
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ok so the 2 players with the most credible arguments for GOAT are Maru and Serral and they have one thing in common: They don't play the small weekly tournaments.
I have NEVER played a weekly tournament but I am stuck at high diamond/low masters. Can someone please explain?
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On July 20 2025 15:40 PremoBeats wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2025 01:57 ejozl wrote:On July 17 2025 06:13 PremoBeats wrote:
And as there were 4 times as many tournaments held in that era, I'd suggest multiplying it by another 4. Then the logic is fool-proof.. 2x2x4=16. You use the same logic, only a 1,2 mutliplier, so I'm not sure you can even criticize me. But point taken, many tournaments also mean more opportunities, or more spread out player pool. But there is also quite some money inflation when you see the prize pools of 2016+ What do you mean by inflation of prize pools 2016+? The most prize money spent was by far in 2012... the most prize money spent in a 3 year period was 2012-2014. The fewest amounts were spent (after the roughly 800k in 2010 at the beginning of the game) from 2020-2024 - where contrary to 2011-2019 - not even 3 Million or less than a third were handed out. 2021-2023 marks the period with the least money being spent in prize pools in a 3 year period. I mean... we can go through each and every angle as to what differentiates our reasonings for arriving at certain subjective multipliers... But as your methodology is not very sound to begin with on several fronts (*) , I'd rather keep digging into more data to work on my update. *: For example you use (prize money won per race)/(total amount of money spent) as an "objective" denominator for balance, which is totally skewed by a couple of top players, or even the results of non-top-tier-tournaments where the race balance is completely different. Just to make this point real quick: A much better way to correct for balance would be to look at Premier Tournaments where the top of the top have participated. The map win ratios of TvZ, ZvP and PvT could be calculated and a percentile rank inversion could be used for the results. This also faces the same problem as your methodology in terms of players punishing themselves with good outcomes, but to a much lesser extent. If - for example - Maru pushes Terran in 2018 with 78% win rates in non-mirrors in 55 out of 1000 maps against an overall 50% Terran win rate, the effect is a lot lesser than if he wins 10% of the total money and 40% of the money that Terran won. A simple comparison: For 2018 I arrive at a multiplier for Terran of 0,4832, yours should be at 0,2618 (949k/ 3.625k). As explained before: For our cohort of best players, this also includes completely skewed results form non S-tier tournaments and you already are off about 22 percentage points. While prize money is sensitive to outliers, historically inconsistent and further completely set off by a couple of high prize tournaments, your whole idea of not even quantifying quality or numbers in any meaningful way in your different eras and simply doubling the result... I mean... you should know that it is absolutely ridiculous, no? I was asked to redo my methodology cause Rogue was placed outside of the top 5, yet you have the player whom probably every SCII fan agrees is at least in the the top 3, outside of the top 10... didn't you ever think that there could be some things wrong with it Now comparing it to my "subjective" result: I gave multiple reasons as to why different metrics need different era-multipliers and used simulation-based probabilistic models to see which multipliers should be appropriate. As I said several times before in this thread: I am happy to discuss them, if you think my logic or calculations have flaws.
By inflation I mean the 100k+ prize pools. Katowice was always the finals of iem circuit, and anaheim for mlg, and winter for dreamhack, so these acted as world championships, but they only awarded around 50k for first place.
Such research would indeed be interesting, one could also use aligulac for this.
But making it so that you chose to use some of the prize money, or only prize money from highest lvl play that would be to make it more subjective. Keeping it as is, it accounts for both imbalance if protoss wins all online leagues and at the highest lvl where t, z might be favoured. The only real problems with my method, as I see it, is 1) it's very lopsided and Clem losing or winning those 400k makes a huge difference, but as I said, if I chose to devalue this, that would be emplacing another subjective line, and it would also mean that for more qualitative data that I would need the data for every pro, not just top 30 earners, or thereabouts. 2) is that region lock affects this a bunch, so eu, am region is having a huge effect on my data from kr, or global events. Serral is rank 5 btw in my updated one.
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It's crazy how people are able to rationalize stuff, truly the human mind is fascinating.
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Sometimes you have to marvel at the tenacity of Maru defenders, they are tougher fighters than Maru himself, who folds in big stages every time there's another one of these threads popping out.
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Sometimes you have to marvel at the late bloom of Serral fanboys, they are more delayed than Serral himself, who joined a pro team in Wings of Liberty and is the same age than Neeb but only showed results in LOTV. They just refuse to admit the zerg-favored patches in LOTV, the foreigner-favored region lock, the decrease of competitive after Kespa dispanded and Blizzard got out, and the inflation of prize money over years (my boy $O$ would get 600k instead of 200k for his two WCS champions if the prize money was like now)
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Northern Ireland25282 Posts
On July 25 2025 06:05 dedede wrote:
Sometimes you have to marvel at the late bloom of Serral fanboys, they are more delayed than Serral himself, who joined a pro team in Wings of Liberty and is the same age than Neeb but only showed results in LOTV. They just refuse to admit the zerg-favored patches in LOTV, the foreigner-favored region lock, the decrease of competitive after Kespa dispanded and Blizzard got out, and the inflation of prize money over years (my boy $O$ would get 600k instead of 200k for his two WCS champions if the prize money was like now)
We’re hitting levels of cope I hadn’t previously thought possible.
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On July 25 2025 06:05 dedede wrote:
Sometimes you have to marvel at the late bloom of Serral fanboys, they are more delayed than Serral himself, who joined a pro team in Wings of Liberty and is the same age than Neeb but only showed results in LOTV. They just refuse to admit the zerg-favored patches in LOTV, the foreigner-favored region lock, the decrease of competitive after Kespa dispanded and Blizzard got out, and the inflation of prize money over years (my boy $O$ would get 600k instead of 200k for his two WCS champions if the prize money was like now)
It's getting absolutely hilarious how specific these arguments have to go to even remotely discredit Serral. This is literally the Starcraft version of the "but can they do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke?" memes in football
Serral was in school and only play SC2 part-time before 2017. He turned pro in 2017 in Finland of all places, and became world champ in 2018, dominating all your precious Koreans, Zerg players included, until this day.
You think region lock protects Serral? It's the other way around, you should feel lucky about the fact that he only gets to practice with Spirit and Oliveira on EU server all his career, if he grew up in Korea and has access to more professional training and practices, the domination will only come sooner and harder, and GSL will just be another playground for him, as GSL has basically become emotional support group for players that can't beat Serral at this point.
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On July 25 2025 06:46 Nasigil1 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2025 06:05 dedede wrote:
Sometimes you have to marvel at the late bloom of Serral fanboys, they are more delayed than Serral himself, who joined a pro team in Wings of Liberty and is the same age than Neeb but only showed results in LOTV. They just refuse to admit the zerg-favored patches in LOTV, the foreigner-favored region lock, the decrease of competitive after Kespa dispanded and Blizzard got out, and the inflation of prize money over years (my boy $O$ would get 600k instead of 200k for his two WCS champions if the prize money was like now) It's getting absolutely hilarious how specific these arguments have to go to even remotely discredit Serral. This is literally the Starcraft version of the "but can they do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke?" memes in football Serral was in school and only play SC2 part-time before 2017. He turned pro in 2017 in Finland of all places, and became world champ in 2018, dominating all your precious Koreans, Zerg players included, until this day. You should feel lucky about the region lock and the fact that he only gets to practice with Spirit and Oliveira on EU server all his career, if he grew up in Korea and has access to more professional training and practices, the domination will only come sooner and harder.
Cmon He is at the same age as Maru and Maru was in school when he won OSL. Life was in school when he won WCS. Neeb was in school when he won Kespa cup. Serral joined Ence in 2013, so Ence is not a pro team? If Serral was able to make any results sooner in HoTS not to the level of Korean pros but just to be able to keep up with Nerchio he would've turned full-time immediately, but no, his results was so bad in HoTS so why bother. And 2018 he played those Mana, Has, 16 year old reynor and got 3 WCS region locked tournaments and fanboys like you suddenly compared him to Maru who won 3GSLs and WEGS in 2018? If he was Korean, none of your fanboys would ever exist.
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On July 25 2025 06:28 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2025 06:05 dedede wrote:
Sometimes you have to marvel at the late bloom of Serral fanboys, they are more delayed than Serral himself, who joined a pro team in Wings of Liberty and is the same age than Neeb but only showed results in LOTV. They just refuse to admit the zerg-favored patches in LOTV, the foreigner-favored region lock, the decrease of competitive after Kespa dispanded and Blizzard got out, and the inflation of prize money over years (my boy $O$ would get 600k instead of 200k for his two WCS champions if the prize money was like now) We’re hitting levels of cope I hadn’t previously thought possible.
It's just all facts 
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Northern Ireland25282 Posts
Serral can’t be the GOAT because he’s not Korean and improved as he got older, am I getting that right aye?
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On July 25 2025 07:41 WombaT wrote:
Serral can’t be the GOAT because he’s not Korean and improved as he got older, am I getting that right aye?
No. Serral can be one of the GOATs but he is NOT the GOAT because: (1) lack of achievements during the HOTS/KeSPA era, when the competitive level of StarCraft II was at its peak (2) No Starleague titles(OSL/SSL/GSL), specifically GSL Code S championships before 2023(pick your timeline), which mattered most before the level of competition declined futhermore post-pandemic (3) His rise happened in the LOTV, when Zerg became overpowered, something even Rogue has admitted.
As for him not being Korean: (1) It’s commendable that he succeeded outside of Korea, but he also benefited from WCS region-locks, just like other foreigners e.g. Neeb and Scarlett. (2) His non-Korean status contributed to an inflated level of fan and caster bias. Players like Rogue and Dark had more entertaining styles, yet Serral still received disproportionate praise (e.g. people even some casters calling him GOAT after blizzcon 2018 when Maru had 4 GSLs and Rogue had won BlizzCon and two IEMs in hands).
Regarding “he improved as he got older”: (1) Then the cope his fanboys have that he only became pro in 2017 is a lie, he signed with ENCE as early as 2013, and his "active period" is 2011-Present.
It's all about the facts. If "if serral was Korean he would dominate sooner" or "if serral was in Korea he could win GSLs" is less of a cope than those facts to you, then I don't have comments on that.
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It will forever be a mystery how the players who dominated "the most competitive era" immediately fall-off the bandwagon after Proleague closed. Lazy bastards...
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On July 25 2025 09:14 Balnazza wrote:
It will forever be a mystery how the players who dominated "the most competitive era" immediately fall-off the bandwagon after Proleague closed. Lazy bastards...
Who immediately fell off after the Proleague era? I wonder which players are referred to. The only one that comes to my mind is Zest who dominated in Proleague in 2015, but he still had some good results from 2018 to 2020. If no EWC, players now won't practice much either. KeSPA/Proleague provided the real professional infrastructure like player salaries, structured team play, and regular competition, basically the classic professional sports or esports model like NBA or LoL. Most other players didn’t drop off instantly they just gradually became less competitive after Proleague disbanded, in fact, even today, most of the top players are still ex-Proleague players now in their 30s even after serving military services .
Without KeSPA’s involvement, SC2 wasn’t really a “professional” scene in the same sense either before or after Proleague era. Like now no matter how popular BW gets again in Korea, it's still hardly a real "professional" esports unlike LoL and CS2.
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Northern Ireland25282 Posts
On July 25 2025 09:14 Balnazza wrote:
It will forever be a mystery how the players who dominated "the most competitive era" immediately fall-off the bandwagon after Proleague closed. Lazy bastards...
Absolutely unprofessional fuckers…
Joking aside, people are so unreasonable on this specific point it blows my mind.
The Kespa system built players up and honed them. The lack of it is a question of ‘what would the next Korean generation look like and how could would they be?’ Maybe there were 10 folks with the talent to be the Korean Serral/Reynor/Clem who never got developed. The game could have looked crazy indeed.
Past a point, if you’re already at the top of the tree, that system isn’t going to make a crazy amount of difference. Some, but not huge. Musicians don’t stay in conservatories for like, 15 years. They get the skills, the experience and rub off of other gifted musicians for a bit, then they go out in the world. They’ve done the initial grind, as long as they maintain and work on their art, they’re not going to forget how to play by virtue of not being in a conservatory.
Anyways, to expand on me point we have a few examples.
Exhibit A:
Remember that fellow Rain? He was pretty good. Remember he fancied a different lifestyle, joined a foreign team and won a Starleague nonetheless?
Exhibit B:
Obscure player but there’s this bloke called Innovation I was reading about the other day. Intriguingly he spent an entire year on a foreign team, living the relaxed, slobbish foreign lifestyle. Was terrible for his game though, he only won one Starleague.
Exhibit C:
‘Patch Terran’ or not, remember that guy Byun who fucked off for ages and people memed milk cartons of him. Who was never strictly in a Kespa team and just grinded like fuck, playing every minor tournament in existence (and probably some that didn’t en route to being a GSL and World Champ?
Anyway, you get the point. We’ve Kespa players (and Byun) who already weren’t in that environment, but were beating those players. In that ‘peak Kespa’ epoch.
Fast forward a few years, some bloke called Serral shows up. Word on the street is, he’s pretty good. Why can’t people beat him? I mean, obviously they can, he does lose.
If guys like Rain, Inno, Byun (and especially Byun because he did it for ages), can move to a more independent environment, keep their level up and win big tournaments in the peak Kespa era, why can nobody do it afterwards, in a supposedly easier era.
As I’ve also argued frequently, and never got a satisfactory answer, prize money was still substantial. If the level really did drop to a significant degree, why did nobody fully capitalise?
I pick Innovation for this because I don’t think many dispute his greatness. He’s also more known for his love of the money than some others. Let’s arbitrarily say the level has dropped like 10%. Like you really think Innovation isn’t sitting there going ‘shit son, I was the best (and the first TL GOAT) when these cats were good, how much money can I make now they are all coasting?’
Except it didn’t happen with Inno, or anyone really. Plenty had their moments for sure, but with this supposedly much weaker scene with easy prize money pickings, you never really got a player rolling their sleeves up and dominating. I’ll give Rogue his 2017 obviously, but in terms of a bigger span and consistency (note I’m talking dominance not merely titles) it’s Serral > quite close to Maru > basically a chasm.
A final point I will add is, it’s only Serral. It really is.
Clem and Reynor are exceptionally strong players, World Champs. They’re not Serral. They lose way more consistently, to a wider range of Korea’s best. People will say things like ‘it’s stylistic’ to explain Clem eating another loss to a SHIN allin, or Reynor running into the brick wall of Gumiho’s mech or whatever. Styles do make fights, that is true for sure.
Clem’s record is basically the best around at least in the last few years going around versus Serral, and Reynor’s is bad but still better than a lot of Korean players. However, their records against good Korean players in general are considerably worse.
If Koreans were forgetting how to play StarCraft, I’d expect those two to become more and more dominant over time, but they’ve waxed and waned.
TLDR Serral is clearly just a crazy outlier.
The only argument against him being the GOAT IMO is intangibles rather than numbers, and nobody wins that either, for me. Most arguments against him are inconsistent nonsense. Some are reasonable tbf.
I think if Inno had won a WC or two, allied to his incredible level at a very competitive time, maybe. Or Maru doing the same. If Rogue wasn’t constantly hard stuck at the Ro8 in Starleagues in the Kespa era, he’s in with a shout.
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On July 24 2025 20:52 ejozl wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2025 15:40 PremoBeats wrote:On July 19 2025 01:57 ejozl wrote:On July 17 2025 06:13 PremoBeats wrote:
And as there were 4 times as many tournaments held in that era, I'd suggest multiplying it by another 4. Then the logic is fool-proof.. 2x2x4=16. You use the same logic, only a 1,2 mutliplier, so I'm not sure you can even criticize me. But point taken, many tournaments also mean more opportunities, or more spread out player pool. But there is also quite some money inflation when you see the prize pools of 2016+ What do you mean by inflation of prize pools 2016+? The most prize money spent was by far in 2012... the most prize money spent in a 3 year period was 2012-2014. The fewest amounts were spent (after the roughly 800k in 2010 at the beginning of the game) from 2020-2024 - where contrary to 2011-2019 - not even 3 Million or less than a third were handed out. 2021-2023 marks the period with the least money being spent in prize pools in a 3 year period. I mean... we can go through each and every angle as to what differentiates our reasonings for arriving at certain subjective multipliers... But as your methodology is not very sound to begin with on several fronts (*) , I'd rather keep digging into more data to work on my update. *: For example you use (prize money won per race)/(total amount of money spent) as an "objective" denominator for balance, which is totally skewed by a couple of top players, or even the results of non-top-tier-tournaments where the race balance is completely different. Just to make this point real quick: A much better way to correct for balance would be to look at Premier Tournaments where the top of the top have participated. The map win ratios of TvZ, ZvP and PvT could be calculated and a percentile rank inversion could be used for the results. This also faces the same problem as your methodology in terms of players punishing themselves with good outcomes, but to a much lesser extent. If - for example - Maru pushes Terran in 2018 with 78% win rates in non-mirrors in 55 out of 1000 maps against an overall 50% Terran win rate, the effect is a lot lesser than if he wins 10% of the total money and 40% of the money that Terran won. A simple comparison: For 2018 I arrive at a multiplier for Terran of 0,4832, yours should be at 0,2618 (949k/ 3.625k). As explained before: For our cohort of best players, this also includes completely skewed results form non S-tier tournaments and you already are off about 22 percentage points. While prize money is sensitive to outliers, historically inconsistent and further completely set off by a couple of high prize tournaments, your whole idea of not even quantifying quality or numbers in any meaningful way in your different eras and simply doubling the result... I mean... you should know that it is absolutely ridiculous, no? I was asked to redo my methodology cause Rogue was placed outside of the top 5, yet you have the player whom probably every SCII fan agrees is at least in the the top 3, outside of the top 10... didn't you ever think that there could be some things wrong with it Now comparing it to my "subjective" result: I gave multiple reasons as to why different metrics need different era-multipliers and used simulation-based probabilistic models to see which multipliers should be appropriate. As I said several times before in this thread: I am happy to discuss them, if you think my logic or calculations have flaws. By inflation I mean the 100k+ prize pools. Katowice was always the finals of iem circuit, and anaheim for mlg, and winter for dreamhack, so these acted as world championships, but they only awarded around 50k for first place. Such research would indeed be interesting, one could also use aligulac for this. But making it so that you chose to use some of the prize money, or only prize money from highest lvl play that would be to make it more subjective. Keeping it as is, it accounts for both imbalance if protoss wins all online leagues and at the highest lvl where t, z might be favoured. The only real problems with my method, as I see it, is 1) it's very lopsided and Clem losing or winning those 400k makes a huge difference, but as I said, if I chose to devalue this, that would be emplacing another subjective line, and it would also mean that for more qualitative data that I would need the data for every pro, not just top 30 earners, or thereabouts. 2) is that region lock affects this a bunch, so eu, am region is having a huge effect on my data from kr, or global events. Serral is rank 5 btw in my updated one.
Subjective context is there for a reason like era adjustments or region lock differences. To devalue the inflated prize pool tournaments would simply be sensible, if you necessarily want to take prize money as a GOAT-metric.
Doing so will be a lot of work but it is kind of your "own fault" to try to use a metric for crowning a GOAT that is inherently bad (sensitive to outliers, historically inconsistent and further completely set off by a couple of high prize tournaments) at it
You are correct to try to keep subjectivity to a minimum, but other metrics are simply much better at achieving this.
And the balance issue is still not addressed, despite your explanation. You are 22% off, if we go by a balance method that actually shows how the maps have ended. Being 22% off is absolute bonkers. You are basically boosting one race by over 20% while you penalize others by 20%, basically creating a 40% difference, although there simply might have been more strong players of that race, one high priced tournament that has been won by that race or because of luck. To call this approach " very easy to be completely objective with balance" is simply ridiculous.
And just to be clear: The method I suggested is not perfect either. It could very well be, that the balance was off and the other races simply managed to stay around a 50% win rate because the players were stronger, but I think that this approach is the closest we can get to equal out balance issues.
What did change in the update?
On July 25 2025 08:00 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2025 07:41 WombaT wrote:
Serral can’t be the GOAT because he’s not Korean and improved as he got older, am I getting that right aye? No. Serral can be one of the GOATs but he is NOT the GOAT because: (1) lack of achievements during the HOTS/KeSPA era, when the competitive level of StarCraft II was at its peak (2) No Starleague titles(OSL/SSL/GSL), specifically GSL Code S championships before 2023(pick your timeline), which mattered most before the level of competition declined futhermore post-pandemic (3) His rise happened in the LOTV, when Zerg became overpowered, something even Rogue has admitted. As for him not being Korean: (1) It’s commendable that he succeeded outside of Korea, but he also benefited from WCS region-locks, just like other foreigners e.g. Neeb and Scarlett. (2) His non-Korean status contributed to an inflated level of fan and caster bias. Players like Rogue and Dark had more entertaining styles, yet Serral still received disproportionate praise (e.g. people even some casters calling him GOAT after blizzcon 2018 when Maru had 4 GSLs and Rogue had won BlizzCon and two IEMs in hands). Regarding “he improved as he got older”: (1) Then the cope his fanboys have that he only became pro in 2017 is a lie, he signed with ENCE as early as 2013, and his "active period" is 2011-Present. It's all about the facts. If "if serral was Korean he would dominate sooner" or "if serral was in Korea he could win GSLs" is less of a cope than those facts to you, then I don't have comments on that.
To me, the GOAT is an amalgamation of titles, dominance, consistency, efficiency and a good story. While many players have a good story, Serral in my opinion encompasses the former points the most.
You are correct that he misses some titles from a specific - most competitive - era and titles where the surrounding circumstances are too unappealing but that, at least in my opinion, is set off by the sheer dominance he has over others.
We have a dozen players that already had success in the prime SC2 era, where forged by a multi million dollar machine and once Serral turned full time pro he dismantled them all between his golf and sauna sessions. His match win rates, tournament win percentages, average places and efficiency over half of the game's duration are so insane that I redid his numbers twice at times, as I thought I miscalculated or -counted. And this is true even if you include his slump years in a comparison against players like Mvp, Life or Rain who only had around 3 years of high level play.
To me, it is either Serral or no one. He directly competed with all big names that come up except Mvp (and vice-versa) and he absolutely smashed all of them statistically and in titles. Even when we discount all region lock wins, despite him not participating in the GSL that is held roughly 3 time a year - meaning over 20 missed opportunities - he has roughly the same PT title count as Maru. That is simply a ridiculous display of dominance.
But I can understand that others value 1 or 2 wins in the prime era as important too. I just don't see anyone being above Serral when he consistently defeated and outperformed them statistically in the same period. I don't wanna pick on Maru, but his case to me is the perfect example: To me, the Greatest (!) of all Time, cannot be produced by being the 4th to 2nd best in one period and the 3rd to 2nd best in another.
"Serral's rise happened, when Zerg became overpowered".
So far from what I can tell looking at the statistics, the statement that Zerg was overpowered in 2018 and 2019 is not true.
I know Rogue's quote, but statistically - looking at the biggest tournament map win rates - Rogue is wrong (perhaps subjectively it felt to him like that because the play style benefitted him, who knows).
Funny enough, the year with the biggest off-balance so far in that analysis is 2021 pro-Zerg, which statistically is Serral's worst year by far. A first glimpse at this analysis, mostly indicates that the other Zerg benefitted from this more than Serral (perhaps because of the fact that he had to play more ZvZ back then, which was his weakest matchup... have to look more into the data to verify).
"Serral benefitted from region locks"
Yup, he did. But a system in which full time pros from a multi million dollar industry with team houses and perfect practice conditions fly around the world to butcher part time pros probably wasn't the best model either.
And if you make that argument, you can also make the argument that the Koreans post-2018 benefitted from the inherent structure in GSLs that protected them from competing against Serral, who dominated them at over 85% around the world and in Korea.
"The scene was more competitive"
Competitive in a different sense. But that doesn't mean it was necessarily harder to win. A single monster can statistically inhibit your chances of winning more than one more group stage - meaning double the player pool of a 60-65% win rate bunch. So if your argument is that there was easy money to be made post KeSPA as it was less competitive, why didn't players stay around to make that money?
@WombaT: Saw your post, after sending mine: As always, your contributions are a treat to read
I haven't forgotten the quirks, I simply want to collect more and finish my project first. The Weeding (huehue) was a blast btw... the set I prepared was received insanely well and I got an invitation to play at another in 2 months lol :D
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Not discrediting anyone who's won these last few years, they are the best to have ever played SC2. But this is because they stand on the shoulders of giants. And there are very few giants here.
Unfortunately, winning in the least competitive era just doesn't spell "the GOAT" to me. So anything after 2016 is discounted, and anything after 2020 is heavily discounted.
The four eras to me are:
1. The beginning (2010-2012): most competitive, SC2 was all the hype, everyone jumping ship to SC2 including KESPA
2. The maturation (2013-2015): most competitive, maybe the golden age of SC2, new players left and right
3. The consolidation (2016-2019): declining competitiveness, the "last batch" of new players
4. The twilight (2020~): least competitive
*Challenge A: name one player who joined this time that's actually good who's name is not MaxPax, literally, just 1.
4.5. The oil revival (2023~): least competitive, the oil money is only keeping the old players playing cause it's decent money. Players can come back from the military and get into top-16/18 in the world at age 30+, just unheard of.
*Challenge B: name one player who returned from the military around age 30 that can get into GSL Code S from 2012-15.
This is largely true from a prize money perspective as well. Further, $100k today is nothing compared to $100k in 2010.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics gives $1,000 in 2010 an equivalent of ~$1,500 value in 2025. And if you look at other assets like real estate, it's about 100x in 2010 to 200x in 2025, and gold, about 100x in 2010 and 350x in 2025.
To me, it's like Bballer who argues that Bill Russell is the GOAT cause he won 11x rings. A lot more than MJ's 6x. But in the 1950s and 60s, basketball was not what it is today, and there were only 8 teams compared to 30 teams now. The chance of winning if we were to throw a die is 12.5% compared to today's 3.3%.
Even in the weak and less competitive era of Bball in the 1950s/60s, players are paid millions in today's money. So they are a lot more competitive than today's SC2.
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How is Serral the best to have ever played because he "stands on the shoulders of giants"? How exactly did the KeSPA period influence this bloke sitting in his sauna in Finland, starting SC2 full time after finishing school? He didn't inherit a Korean team house, a KeSPA coach or a Proleague slot - he just dismantled the players who did :D
Sometimes, to me it looks like people simply cannot accept that their heros from back then have been outperformed.
Further: Competitiveness is not only defined by new players. We had an absurd amount of established players when Serral, Reynor and Clem made a name for themselves. Having an elite old guard sport simply calls for different qualities. Subjectively one can prefer one over the other but they are simply different styles of competitiveness.
Calling 2019 as "no longer competitive" imo is an insult to all the players that came out of the prime era like Dark, TY, Trap, Maru, INnoVation, Classic, soO, DRG, Patience, sOs, Dream, GuMiho, Cure, ByuN, Creator, Rogue, Zest, Bunny, Solar and herO. Yes, we lost some names like TaeJa, PartinG, Rain, Life or Byul to military, extremely declining results or criminal scandals but many of the big names were still around.
And Serral did not inherit their meta... he beat them.
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Actually, my original sentence on the players today are "the best to have ever played SC2" wasn't referring to Serral specifically. In fact, I don't think he's the best player to have played. I think Clem has a higher peak, just look at the 2024 EWC final.
Also, you're missing the fundamental point about competitive depth vs individual achievement.
Infrastructure: Yes, Serral didn't inherit Korean infrastructure - that's exactly why his dominance is less impressive from a GOAT perspective. He succeeded when the competitive ecosystem had already contracted dramatically.
Evidence of stagnation: Your list of "established players" in 2019 actually proves my point. You're naming players who were already established 5-7 years earlier! This isn't strength - it's stagnation. Where are the fresh challengers pushing these veterans? Where are the power hungry kids that is willing to grind it out when they are winning close to $0 per tournament? That's the definition of a declining competitive scene.
Skill vs Competition: You're also conflating individual skill progression with competitive environment - they're completely different concepts.
Yes, today's players are technically stronger because they've absorbed 15 years of accumulated knowledge, refined builds, and perfected mechanics. They absolutely "stand on the shoulders of giants" in terms of game understanding.
But that's exactly why the competitive environment is weaker, not stronger.
Peak Era Comparison: In 2013-2015, you had dozens of players also learning from those giants while the giants were still competing at their peak:
- MVP/Nestea/MC/MMA/etc. still hungry
- KeSPA legends in their prime
- new talent emerging from strong regional scenes
- all pushing each other simultaneously
Today's scene has the knowledge but lacks competitive pressure. From 2016~, Korean team houses were closing, Proleague was gone, and players faced fewer practice partners with less infrastructure.
Chess analogy: It's like claiming today's chess players are in the most competitive era because they have access to computer analysis that Kasparov didn't have. The tools are better, but if there are only 10 serious competitors left instead of 100, the competitive environment is objectively weaker.
Standing on giants' shoulders makes you taller, but it doesn't make the mountain you're climbing any higher if all the other climbers went home.
Regarding military: Your "different styles of competitiveness" argument is backwards. When 30+ year old military returnees can crack top-16/18 immediately after 2+ years away (Challenge B still stands), that screams weak depth. In 2013-2015, military service was a career death sentence - the scene was too competitive.
Innovation, Maru, soO, etc. had to fight through hundreds of Korean prospects just to qualify. Today's qualifiers are thin by comparison.
My closing thoughts: Serral didn't "beat the meta" - he inherited a solved meta and executed it against a depleted field. The fact that we're still discussing 2013-2015 players as his main competition in 2019+ proves the scene stopped producing elite talent.
It's not about discrediting people's skill - it's about context. Dominating 30 teams in the NBA is more impressive than dominating 8 teams, regardless of individual talent level.
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EPT
